FITSVERIFY(1)

NAME
fitsverify - Test if the input file(s) conform to the FITS format

SYNOPSIS
fitsverify filename ... fitsverify @filelist.txt

DESCRIPTION
This task reads one or more input FITS files and verifies that the files conform to the specifications of the FITS Standard document (known as the NASA/Science Office of Standards and Technology 'Definition of the Current FITS Standard', document number, NOST 100-2.0, available online at https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/). The input filename template may contain wildcard characters, in which case all matching files will be tested. Alternatively, the name of an ASCII text file containing a list of file names, one per line, may be entered preceded by an '@' character.

OPTIONS

-H  test ESO HIERARCH keywords

-l  list all header keywords

-q  quiet; print one-line pass/fail summary per file

-e  only test for error conditions; don't issue warnings

-h  Help

ERROR CONDITIONS

•   Mandatory keyword not present or out of order

•   Mandatory keyword has wrong datatype or illegal value

•   END header keyword is not present

•   Sum of table column widths is inconsistent with NAXIS1 value

•   BLANK keyword present in image with floating-point datatype

•   TNULLn keyword present for floating-point binary table column

•   Bit column has non-zero fill bits or is not left adjusted

•   ASCII TABLE column contains illegal value inconsistent with TFORMn

•   Address to a variable length array not within the data heap

•   Extraneous bytes in the FITS file following the last HDU

•   Mandatory keyword values not expressed in fixed format

•   Mandatory keyword duplicated elsewhere in the header

•   Header contains illegal ASCII character (not ASCII 32 - 126)

•   Keyword name contains illegal character

•   Keyword value field has illegal format

•   Value and comment fields not separated by a slash character

•   END keyword not filled with blanks in columns 9 - 80

•   Reserved keyword with wrong datatype or illegal value

•   EXTEND not present in the primary array if there are extensions

•   BLOCKED, if present, not among the first 36 keywords

•   XTENSION keyword in the primary array

•   Column related keyword (TFIELDS, TTYPEn,TFORMn, etc.) in an image

•   SIMPLE, EXTEND, or BLOCKED keyword in any extension

•   BSCALE, BZERO, BUNIT, BLANK, DATAMAX, DATAMIN keywords in a table

•   Image WCS keywords (CTYPEn, CRPIXn, CRVALn, etc.) in a table

•   Table WCS keywords (TCTYPn, TCRPXn, TCRVLn, etc.) in an image

•   TDIMn or THEAP keyword in an ASCII table

•   TBCOLn keyword in a Binary table

•   THEAP keyword in a binary table that has PCOUNT = 0

•   XTENSION, TFORMn, TDISPn or TDIMn value contains leading space(s)

•   Index of any WCS keyword (CRPIXn, CRVALn, etc.) greater than value of WCSAXES

•   Index of any table column descriptor keyword (TTYPEn, TFORMn, etc.) greater than value of TFIELDS

•   TSCALn or TZEROn present for an ASCII, logical, or Bit column

•   TDISPn value is inconsistent with the column datatype

•   Length of a variable length array greater than the maximum length as given by the TFORMn keyword

•   Logical column contains illegal value not equal to 'T', 'F', or 0

•   Character string column contains non-ASCII text character

•   Header fill bytes not all blanks

•   Data fill bytes not all blanks in ASCII tables or all zeros in any other type of HDU

•   Gaps between defined ASCII table columns contain characters with ASCII value > 127

WARNING CONDITIONS

•   SIMPLE = F

•   Presence of deprecated keywords BLOCKED or EPOCH

•   2 HDUs have identical EXTNAME, EXTVER, and EXTLEVEL values

•   BSCALE or TSCALn value = 0.

•   BLANK OR TNULLn value exceeds the legal range

•   TFORMn has 'rAw' format and r is not a multiple of w

•   DATE = 'dd/mm/yy' and yy is less than 10 (Y2K problem??)

•   Index of any WCS keyword (CRPIXn, CRVALn, etc.) greater than value of NAXIS, if the WCSAXES keyword is not present

•   Duplicated keyword (except COMMENT, HISTORY, blank, etc.)

•   Column name (TTYPEn) does not exist or contains characters other than letter, digit and underscore

•   Calculated checksum inconsistent with CHECKSUM or DATASUM keyword

AUTHOR
HEASARC at NASA/GSFC

REPORTING BUGS
https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ftoolshelp