9. Template Files

When a new FITS file is created with a call to fits_create_file, the name of a template file may be supplied in parentheses immediately following the name of the new file to be created. This template is used to define the structure of one or more HDUs in the new file. The template file may be another FITS file, in which case the newly created file will have exactly the same keywords in each HDU as in the template FITS file, but all the data units will be filled with zeros. The template file may also be an ASCII text file, where each line (in general) describes one FITS keyword record. The format of the ASCII template file is described in the following sections.