The CATS database to operate with astrophysical catalogs

A public database of astrophysical (radio and other) catalogs (CATS), has been created at Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). It allows to execute a number of operations in batch or interactive mode, e.g. to obtain a list and parameters of catalogs, to extract objects from one or several catalogs by various selection criteria, perform cross-identification of different catalogs, or construct radio spectra of selected sources. Access to CATS is provided in both dialog mode (non-graphics), and graphics mode (hypertext, via Tcl/Tk or possibly JAVA in future). The result of CATS operation can be sent to the user in tabular and graphical formats.