============================================ pycfitsio: Python ctypes wrapper for cfitsio

Features

• read binary tables using hdu and column names into simple dictionaries of arrays
• write FITS files incrementally 1 HDU at a time

Requirements

pycfitsio requires the dynamic library cfitsio, in linux it usually packaged as libcfitsio-dev

Install

pip install pycfitsio #stable version

# for development version clone from github and run
python setup.py install

Examples

Reading

---

>>> f = pycfitsio.open("debug/data.fits")

>>> hdulist = f.HDUs

>>> print(hdulist)
OrderedDict([('DATA', HDU: DATA)])

>>> hdu = f['DATA']

>>> column_array = f['DATA'].read_column('signal')

>>> all_columns = f['DATA'].read_all() 
>>> print(all_columns)
OrderedDict([('signal', array([   0., 1. ....])), 'flag', array([1, 1, ....])])

Writing

---

>>> from collections import OrderedDict
>>> f = pycfitsio.create('file.fits')

3 options to write HDUs:

#. list of (name, array) tuples

>>> f.write_HDU('HDUNAME', 
        [('firstcolname', np.arange(10)), ('seccolname', np.arange(10)**2)]
      )

#. OrderedDict keys = name values = array

>>> data = OrderedDict()
>>> data['firstcolname'] = np.arange(10)
>>> data['seccolname'] = np.arange(10)**2
>>> f.write_HDU('HDUNAME', data)

#. Compound numpy array

>>> data = np.ones(10, dtype = [('firstcolname', np.long), ('seccolname', np.double)])
>>> f.write_HDU('HDUNAME', data)

>>> f.close()