5.7.1 Create New Table

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Create a new ASCII or bintable table extension. If the FITS file is currently empty then a dummy primary array will be created before appending the table extension to it. The tbltype parameter defines the type of table and can have values of ASCII_TBL or BINARY_TBL. The naxis2 parameter gives the initial number of rows to be created in the table, and should normally be set = 0. CFITSIO will automatically increase the size of the table as additional rows are written. A non-zero number of rows may be specified to reserve space for that many rows, even if a fewer number of rows will be written. The tunit and extname parameters are optional and a null pointer may be given if they are not defined. The FITS Standard recommends that only letters, digits, and the underscore character be used in column names (the ttype parameter) with no embedded spaces. Trailing blank characters are not significant. It is recommended that all the column names in a given table be unique within the first 8 characters, and strongly recommended that the names be unique within the first 16 characters.  

  int fits_create_tbl / ffcrtb
      (fitsfile *fptr, int tbltype, long naxis2, int tfields, char *ttype[],
       char *tform[], char *tunit[], char *extname, int *status)