The FitsChanFitsChan constructor function, astFitsChanastFitsChan, is straightforward to use:
Here, we have omitted any source or sink functions by supplying NULL pointers for the first two arguments. We have also initialised the FitsChan's EncodingEncoding attribute to NATIVE. This indicates that we will be using the native encoding (ยง16.1) to store and retrieve Objects. If this was left unspecified, the default would depend on the FitsChan's contents. An attempt is made to use whatever encoding appears to have been used previously. For an empty FitsChan, the default is NATIVE, but it does no harm to be sure.