| Quick-Start Introduction to PDS Archiving |
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Consulting Resources at the CN
The Central Node provides overall project management for PDS, providing coordination and support services for the Discipline Nodes.
The Central Node is also responsible for the maintenance and distribution of data archive standards, and evaluates emerging archive technologies.
It provides an interface to active planetary missions, provides software for preparing and validating data, and maintains a central catalog system.
For data preparers and reviewers we can provide:
- an introduction to the PDS system;
- advice on how to proceed, which Discipline Node to contact;
- specific examples of PDS-formatted data sets and the ancillary information
required by PDS for the archive;
- standards guidance and documentation (Standards Reference, Planetary Science Data Dictionary and Data Preparation Workbook) used for preparing archive products; and
- Unix and C tools for working with PDS data sets.
For assistance please contact the PDS Operator at (818) 306-6130 or via e-mail.
PDS Software Libraries
The PDS Software Libraries were created as part of an effort to aid in the access to PDS products.
These tools are available for downloading through the ftp site starhawk.jpl.nasa.gov or through the
PDS
Software Inventory.
- Object Access Library (OAL) / Label Library Light (L3) -
The PDS Object Access Library (OAL) and Label Library Light (L3)
libraries
provide software routines that allow access to PDS labeled data products
from multiple hardware platforms and represent the standard software
libraries available for the production and use of the PDS archive. The L3
reads and parses a PDS product label and allows access to label
information using standard function calls. The OAL, using the label
information, manipulates the actual science data at three levels. At the
lowest level or stream layer, physical record format issues such as those
involving <CR><LF> record delimiters are addressed. At the next higher
level or structure layer, data format differences such as byte-order are
addressed. Finally at the object layer, data products can be manipulated
using object-based function calls. Both libraries are included in the OAL
distribution package.
PDS Toolbox
The PDS Toolbox was created as part of an effort to aid in the creation and validation of PDS labels.
These labels are required on all data sets being archived by the PDS.
The tools developed for this purpose include the Label Verifier, the Label Library and utilities.
These tools are available for downloading through the ftp site starhawk.jpl.nasa.gov or through the
PDS
Software Inventory.
These routines include:
- Label Verifier (lvtool) - A tool for checking the syntax and
semantics of PDS labels by comparing them to the toolbox data dictionary.
- Label Library - A library of C routines for manipulating Object
Description Language labels.
- PDS Table Browser (tbtool) - A tool for interactively examining
PDS labeled ASCII and binary data in the forms of TABLEs, SERIES, or
SPECTRUMs, in order to verify correctness of the label. Allows the user
to browse, summarize, and visually verify columns of data.
- PDS Table to Label Generator (tab2lab) - A tool for generating
PDS labels given a template label and an ASCII table of data values for
insertion into the template.
- PDS File to Label Generator (file2lab) - A tool for generating
PDS labels given a template label and a set of ASCII data files (or file
headers) that contain certain values for insertion into the template.
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