Skip to content

Terms, definitions and abbreviated terms

Term Description
SUM Software User Manual
COTS Commercial Off-The-Shelf
ADQL Astronomical Data Query Language, the IVOA-standardized query language implemented by this package
AST Abstract Syntax Tree, the typed Python object tree returned by parse_adql()
IVOA International Virtual Observatory Alliance, the body that standardizes ADQL and TAP
TAP Table Access Protocol, the IVOA protocol used to send ADQL queries to astronomical data centers
Annex A The formal BNF grammar of ADQL 2.1, published as an annex to the IVOA Recommendation; PyADQL's grammar is transcribed directly from it
BNF Backus-Naur Form, the notation used by Annex A to define ADQL's grammar
CTE Common Table Expression, a WITH name AS (...) clause (ADQL 2.1)
UDF User-Defined Function; any name(...) call not recognized as a built-in ADQL function is parsed as UserFunctionCall
STC-S Space-Time Coordinate metadata in string form, as accepted by ADQL's REGION(...)
ICRS International Celestial Reference System, a common astronomical coordinate system used as an example coordsys value in this manual
Lark The Python parsing library (lark-parser) used to compile PyADQL's grammar
Earley The parsing algorithm (Lark's earley engine) used to parse ADQL, chosen for its ability to handle ambiguous context-free grammars
DaCHS Data Center Helper Suite, a TAP-service implementation; production DaCHS/EPN-TAP logs were used to validate PyADQL's grammar coverage (see reference_manual.md)
Loguru The Python logging library used for PyADQL's structured logs (stderr)
CLI Command-Line Interface; PyADQL installs a pyadql command, see operation_manual.md
uv The Python packaging/dependency manager (astral-sh/uv) used to build and develop PyADQL