.TH STILTS-TMULTIN 1 "Mar 2017" "" "Stilts commands"
.SH NAME
stilts-tmultin \- Writes multiple processed tables to single container file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.ad l
.HP 15
.hy 0
\fBstilts tmultin\fR [nin=\fI<count>\fR] [ifmtN=\fI<in-format>\fR] [inN=\fI<tableN>\fR] [icmdN=\fI<cmds>\fR] [out=\fI<out-file>\fR] [ofmt=\fI<out-format>\fR]
.hy
.ad
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
\fItmultin\fR takes multiple input tables and writes them to a single output container file. The container file must be of some format which can contain more than one table, for instance a FITS file (which can contain multiple extensions) or a VOTable document (which can contain multiple TABLE elements). Individual filtering may be performed on the tables prior to writing them, and their formats may be specified individually. If you want to apply the same pre-processing to all the input tables, you may find the \fItmulti\fR command more convenient. 

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fBnin=\fI<count>\fR
.RS
The number of input tables for this task. For each of the input tables N there will be associated parameters \fIifmtN\fR, \fIinN\fR and \fIicmdN\fR. 

.RE
.TP
\fBifmtN=\fI<in-format>\fR
.RS
Specifies the format of input table #N as specified by parameter \fIinN\fR. The known formats are listed in SUN/256. This flag can be used if you know what format your table is in. If it has the special value \fI(auto)\fR (the default), then an attempt will be made to detect the format of the table automatically. This cannot always be done correctly however, in which case the program will exit with an error explaining which formats were attempted. This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables. 

.RE
.TP
\fBinN=\fI<tableN>\fR
.RS
The location of input table #N. This may take one of the following forms: 
.RS 2
 
.IP * 2
A filename. 
.IP * 2
A URL. 
.IP * 2
The special value "\fI-\fR", meaning standard input. In this case the input format must be given explicitly using the \fIifmtN\fR parameter. Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way. 
.IP * 2
A scheme specification of the form \fI:<scheme-name>:<scheme-args>\fR. 
.IP * 2
A system command line with either a "\fI<\fR" character at the start, or a "\fI|\fR" character at the end ("\fI<syscmd\fR" or "\fIsyscmd|\fR"). This executes the given pipeline and reads from its standard output. This will probably only work on unix-like systems. 
.RE
 In any case, compressed data in one of the supported compression formats (gzip, Unix compress or bzip2) will be decompressed transparently. 

.RE
.TP
\fBicmdN=\fI<cmds>\fR
.RS
Specifies processing to be performed on input table #N as specified by parameter \fIinN\fR, before any other processing has taken place. The value of this parameter is one or more of the filter commands described in SUN/256. If more than one is given, they must be separated by semicolon characters (";"). This parameter can be repeated multiple times on the same command line to build up a list of processing steps. The sequence of commands given in this way defines the processing pipeline which is performed on the table. 
.PP
Commands may alteratively be supplied in an external file, by using the indirection character '@'. Thus a value of "\fI@filename\fR" causes the file \fIfilename\fR to be read for a list of filter commands to execute. The commands in the file may be separated by newline characters and/or semicolons, and lines which are blank or which start with a '\fI#\fR' character are ignored. 

.RE
.TP
\fBout=\fI<out-file>\fR
.RS
The location of the output file. This is usually a filename to write to. If it is equal to the special value "-" the output will be written to standard output. 

.RE
.TP
\fBofmt=\fI<out-format>\fR
.RS
Specifies the format in which the output tables will be written (one of the ones in SUN/256 - matching is case-insensitive and you can use just the first few letters). If it has the special value "\fI(auto)\fR" (the default), then the output filename will be examined to try to guess what sort of file is required usually by looking at the extension. If it's not obvious from the filename what output format is intended, an error will result. 
.PP
Not all output formats are capable of writing multiple tables; if you choose one that is not, an error will result. 

.RE
.SH SEE ALSO
\fBstilts\fR(1)
.PP
If the package stilts-doc is installed,
the full documentation \fBSUN/256\fR is available in HTML format:
.br
\%file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/sun256/index.html
.SH VERSION
STILTS version 3.4.7-debian
.PP
This is the Debian version of Stilts, which lack the support
of some file formats and network protocols. For differences see
.br
\%file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/README.Debian
.SH AUTHOR
Mark Taylor (Bristol University)