What happened to remove_votable_fields from SimbadClass?

[gregstachowski]

remove_votable_fields seems to have disappeared from SimbadClass at some point after 0.4.5, but there is no mention in the changelogs and I have not found where it was in the commits (but there are a lot of commits since then).

This may have happened a long time ago, but the script which uses it in production has worked reliably for years and there has been no reason to change it or the python venv it runs in until today, when I upgraded astroquery due to the Vizier URL change.

Why was this method removed and what is the designed alternative?

Cheers,

Greg

[bsipocz]

Simbad has totally been refactored to use their VO-backed API -- and this method got removed in v0.4.8 (in #2954). Not explicitely mentioning it in the changelog is an oversight, but also, as we changed the API, I'm afraid there are no plans to add it back.

I would recommend to have a read for the new and updated documentation and see if you even need a similar functionality.

[ManonMarchand]

Hello Greg,

Sorry for the delayed response.

The back-end behind SIMBAD changed completely, the former versions of astroquery depend on a system that is already on a very minimal maintenance mode and will eventually be shut down. It is very likely that you'll have to change a few other things than just remove_votable_fields. Don't hesitate to ask for help, we're back on board and will be responsive in the next months.

The new way to do queries don't work anymore without any VOtable fields at all. This is why the remove_votable_fields method has been removed.

What is your use case? Are the eight default fields too much for you?

from astroquery.simbad import conf
conf.default_columns

['main_id', 'ra', 'dec', 'coo_err_maj', 'coo_err_min', 'coo_err_angle', 'coo_wavelength', 'coo_bibcode']

Maybe we could add a way to edit the default fields. Would that be a good alternative?