Editing RSF Comprehensive Description (section)

==Introduction==

The Regularly Sampled Format (RSF) is a specific arrangement of information defined by the behavior of the implementation of the [http://rsf.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rsf/trunk/api/c/ C API of Madagascar]. RSF is the way in which most Madagascar programs expect their input to be and in which they structure their output. While a [http://reproducibility.org/wiki/Guide_to_RSF_file_format intuitive introduction to RSF] already exists, this document attempts to describe RSF in an exhaustive fashion, for the use of programmers attempting to interface Madagascar with other packages.

The RSF originated as a representation of a discrete set of values of a single-valued function defined on a ''n''-dimensional [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_%28mathematics%29 space]. A real-world example of this is acoustic wavefield propagation in a space-time volume. Each dimension of the space is either discrete and regular, or continuous, but sampled discretely and regularly. In this context, regularity is defined as the property of a set of reals or integers of being consecutive integer multiples of a finite quantity of the same kind of themselves. RSF can be visualized as "matrices with physical dimensions". 

The physicality of dimensions, while useful for jargon, for explanations and for the definition of parameters below, is not compulsory. Ultimately RSF is just a sane way of storing ''n''-d arrays on disk. Just like programming languages use intrinsic methods and user-defined procedures to work with arrays held in memory, Madagascar uses both programs in its main distribution and user-written programs to work with data stored in RSF. RSF datasets are just out-of-core arrays.