Provided by: stilts_3.1.2-2_all 
NAME
stilts-tapquery - Queries a Table Access Protocol server
SYNOPSIS
stilts tapquery [nupload=<count>] [ufmtN=<in-format>] [uploadN=<tableN>] [ucmdN=<cmds>] [ocmd=<cmds>]
[omode=out|meta|stats|count|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|tosql|gui] [out=<out-table>]
[ofmt=<out-format>] [upnameN=<adql-identifier>] [tapurl=<url-value>] [adql=<query-text>]
[parse=true|false] [sync=true|false] [maxrec=<nrow>] [destruction=<iso8601>]
[executionduration=<seconds>] [compress=true|false]
[upvotformat=TABLEDATA|BINARY|BINARY2] [language=<lang-name>] [poll=<millisec>]
[progress=true|false] [delete=finished|never|always]
DESCRIPTION
tapquery can query remote databases using the Table Access Protocol (TAP) services by submitting Astro‐
nomical Data Query Language queries to them and retrieving the results. TAP and ADQL are Virtual Observa‐
tory protocols.
Queries can be submitted in either synchronous or asynchronous mode, as determined by the sync parameter.
In asynchronous mode, if the query has not been deleted by the time the command exits (see the delete pa‐
rameter), the result can be picked up at a later stage using the tapresume command. Table uploads are
supported, so it is possible (if the service supports this functionality), to upload a local table to the
remote database, perform a query involving it, such as a join with a remote table of some sort, and re‐
ceive the result. This powerful facility gives you crossmatches between local and remote tables.
This command does not provide any facility for querying the service for either table or capability meta‐
data, so you will need to know about the service capabilities and database structure from some other
source (possibly TOPCAT).
Note: this command has been introduced at STILTS version 2.3, at which time most available TAP services
are quite new and may not fully conform to the standards, and usage patterns are still settling down. For
this reason you may find that some TAP services do not behave quite as expected; it is also possible that
in future versions the command behaviour or parameters will change in line with changing service profiles
or in the light of user experience.
OPTIONS
nupload=<count>
The number of upload tables for this task. For each of the upload tables N there will be associat‐
ed parameters ufmtN, uploadN and ucmdN.
ufmtN=<in-format>
Specifies the format of upload table #N as specified by parameter uploadN. 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 (auto) (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.
uploadN=<tableN>
The location of upload table #N. This may take one of the following forms:
* A filename.
* A URL.
* The special value "-", meaning standard input. In this case the input format must be given ex‐
plicitly using the ufmtN parameter. Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.
* A system command line with either a "<" character at the start, or a "|" character at the end
("<syscmd" or "syscmd|"). This executes the given pipeline and reads from its standard output.
This will probably only work on unix-like systems.
In any case, compressed data in one of the supported compression formats (gzip, Unix compress or
bzip2) will be decompressed transparently.
ucmdN=<cmds>
Specifies processing to be performed on upload table #N as specified by parameter uploadN, 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.
Commands may alteratively be supplied in an external file, by using the indirection character '@'.
Thus a value of "@filename" causes the file filename 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.
ocmd=<cmds>
Specifies processing to be performed on the output table, after all 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.
Commands may alteratively be supplied in an external file, by using the indirection character '@'.
Thus a value of "@filename" causes the file filename 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.
omode=out|meta|stats|count|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|tosql|gui
The mode in which the result table will be output. The default mode is out, which means that the
result will be written as a new table to disk or elsewhere, as determined by the out and ofmt pa‐
rameters. However, there are other possibilities, which correspond to uses to which a table can be
put other than outputting it, such as displaying metadata, calculating statistics, or populating a
table in an SQL database. For some values of this parameter, additional parameters (<mode-args>)
are required to determine the exact behaviour.
Possible values are
* out
* meta
* stats
* count
* cgi
* discard
* topcat
* samp
* tosql
* gui
Use the help=omode flag or see SUN/256 for more information.
out=<out-table>
The location of the output table. This is usually a filename to write to. If it is equal to the
special value "-" (the default) the output table will be written to standard output.
This parameter must only be given if omode has its default value of "out".
ofmt=<out-format>
Specifies the format in which the output table 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 "(auto)" (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.
This parameter must only be given if omode has its default value of "out".
upnameN=<adql-identifier>
Identifier to use in server-side expressions for uploaded table #N. In ADQL expressions, the table
should be referred to as "TAP_UPLOAD.<label>".
The value must syntactically be an ADQL identifier ([A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9_]*).
tapurl=<url-value>
The base URL of a Table Access Protocol service. This is the bare URL without a trailing
"/[a]sync".
The default values of the various endpoints (sync and async query submission, tables metadata,
service-provided examples etc) use this URL as a parent and append standard sub-paths. However,
other parameters (syncurl, asyncurl, ...) are provided so that the different endpoints can be set
individually if required.
adql=<query-text>
Astronomical Data Query Language string specifying the TAP query to execute. ADQL/S resembles SQL,
so this string will likely start with "SELECT".
parse=true|false
Determines whether an attempt will be made to check the syntax of the ADQL prior to submitting the
query. If this is set true, and if a syntax error is found, the task will fail with an error be‐
fore any attempt is made to submit the query.
sync=true|false
Determines whether the TAP query is submitted in synchronous or asynchronous mode. Synchronous
(true) means that the result is retrieved over the same HTTP connection that the query is submit‐
ted from. This is uncomplicated, but means if the query takes a long time it may time out and the
results will be lost. Asynchronous (false) means that the job is queued and results may be re‐
trieved later. Normally this command does the necessary waiting around and recovery of the result,
though with appropriate settings you can get tapresume to pick it up for you later instead. In
most cases false (the default) is preferred.
maxrec=<nrow>
Sets the requested maximum row count for the result of the query. The service is not obliged to
respect this, but in the case that it has a default maximum record count, setting this value may
raise the limit. If no value is set, the service's default policy will be used.
destruction=<iso8601>
Posts an updated value of the UWS DESTRUCTION parameter to the query job before it starts. This
only makes sense for asynchronous jobs (sync=false).
The supplied value should be an ISO-8601-like string, giving the new requested job destruction
time. The service is not obliged to honour this request. See UWS v1.0, sec 2.2.3.3.
executionduration=<seconds>
Posts an updated value of the UWS EXECUTIONDURATION parameter to the query job before it starts.
This only makes sense for asynchronous jobs (sync=false).
The supplied value is an integer giving the maximum number of wall-clock seconds for which the job
is permitted to execute before being forcibly terminated. A value of zero indicates unlimited du‐
ration. The service is not obliged to honour this request. See UWS v1.0, sec 2.2.3.4.
compress=true|false
If true, the service is requested to provide HTTP-level compression for the response stream (Ac‐
cept-Encoding header is set to "gzip", see RFC 2616). This does not guarantee that compression
will happen but if the service honours this request it may result in a smaller amount of network
traffic at the expense of more processing on the server and client.
upvotformat=TABLEDATA|BINARY|BINARY2
Determines how any uploaded tables will be serialized for transmission to the TAP server. The sup‐
plied string is the name of one of the defined VOTable serialization formats. The choice shouldn't
affect any results, though it may affect required bandwidth, and some services may (though should
not) have non-standard requirements for serialization format.
language=<lang-name>
Language to use for the ADQL-like query. This will usually be "ADQL" (the default), but may be set
to some other value supported by the service, for instance a variant indicating a different ADQL
version. Note that at present, setting it to "PQL" is not sufficient to submit a PQL query.
poll=<millisec>
Interval to wait between polling attempts, in milliseconds. Asynchronous TAP queries can only find
out when they are complete by repeatedly polling the server to find out the job's status. This pa‐
rameter allows you to set how often that happens. Attempts to set it too low (<50) will be reject‐
ed on the assumption that you're thinking in seconds.
progress=true|false
If this parameter is set true, progress of the job is reported to standard output as it happens.
delete=finished|never|always
Determines under what circumstances the UWS job is to be deleted from the server when its data is
no longer required. If it is not deleted, then the job is left on the TAP server and it can be ac‐
cessed via the normal UWS REST endpoints until it is destroyed by the server.
Possible values:
* finished: delete only if the job finished, successfully or not
* never: do not delete
* always: delete in any case
SEE ALSO
stilts(1)
If the package stilts-doc is installed, the full documentation SUN/256 is available in HTML format:
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts-doc/sun256/index.html
VERSION
STILTS version 3.1-2-debian
This is the Debian version of Stilts, which lack the support of some file formats and network protocols.
For differences see
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/README.Debian
AUTHOR
Mark Taylor (Bristol University)
Mar 2017 STILTS-TAPQUERY(1)