5. Basic Interface Routines

This section defines a basic set of subroutines that can be used to perform the most common types of read and write operations on FITS files. New users should start with these subroutines and then, as needed, explore the more advance routines described in the following chapter to perform more complex or specialized operations.

A right arrow symbol (>) is used to separate the input parameters from the output parameters in the definition of each routine. This symbol is not actually part of the calling sequence. Note that the status parameter is both an input and an output parameter and must be initialized = 0 prior to calling the FITSIO subroutines.

Refer to Chapter 9 for the definition of all the parameters used by these interface routines.