[bug #60999] No checks on content when plain-text table doesn't have metadata

[Mohammad Akhlaghi]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?60999>

                 Summary: No checks on content when plain-text table doesn't
have metadata
                 Project: GNU Astronomy Utilities
            Submitted by: makhlaghi
            Submitted on: Sun 01 Aug 2021 07:46:18 PM BST
                Category: Libraries
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Output not reasonable
                  Status: In Progress
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: makhlaghi
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

When the user gives a plain-text file with no metadata, the 'txt.h' library
just counts the tokens in the top line (to find number of columns in whole
table) and assumes the contents are double precision floating point. 

It ignores lines that are commented (starting with a '#'), however, when the
first non-commented line isn't actually a number, this will cause very
confusing error messages later in the calling programs: since the number of
tokens in each non-commented line (usually English lines that aren't
commented) can be different (and usually also different from the number of
columns in the table).

The plain-text table reading library should check if the non-commented lines
are actually a number and abort with a warning if its not a number, printing
the problematic token, so the users notices the cause of the problem and
corrects their input.




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