A machine-readable table is a formated ASCII table designed to be easily read and manipulated by a computer. It consists of a meta-data header and the table data. The meta-data header documents the table format and some of the scientific content such as the units and a short description of each column.

The machine-readable table replaces the original tab-delimited ASCII table that would normal be available and access to the machine-readable table is via the "DATA" link in the upper right corner of the table page. This replaces the "ASCII" link associated with tab-delimited ASCII tables.

Any author can request before acceptance that their tables have a machine-readable component in the electronic edition. Authors should follow the submission guidelines and note the options and costs before submission.

NETSCAPE: Under the "file" pull-down window select "Save Frame As".

INTERNET EXPLORER: Under the "file" pull-down window select "Save As".

Further information on the unit abbrivations, label prefixes, and explanation flags is available via their respective links.

The purpose behind the machine-readable tables is provide the formating information so readers can write their own programs in the language of their choice to read the data. However, there are currently two programs written to extract columns of data from an AAS Journal machine-readable table using the information in the meta-data header. These programs are written in Interactive Data Language (IDL) and in Perl. Instructions for reading machine-readable tables in the spreadsheet EXCEL are also available.