Merge pull request #368 from esheldon/unsort

Return table data in order requested by user

CHANGES.md

@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@ version 1.1.9
 
 Changes
 
+    - Row subsets of table data are returned in the order sent by the user
+      rather than sorted and unique.  E.g. rows = [2, 2, 1] will return
+      data corresponding to that order of rows, including duplicates.
     - Removed deprecated `pkg_resources` from tests (M. Becker).
     - converted tests to use pytest
     - Improved doc strings (N. Tessore)

README.md

@@ -71,11 +71,6 @@ fitsio.write(filename, data)
 
 fitsio.write(filename, image)
 
-# NOTE when reading row subsets, the data must still be read from disk.
-# This is most efficient if the data are read in the order they appear in
-# the file.  For this reason, the rows are always returned in row-sorted
-# order.
-
 #
 # the FITS class gives the you the ability to explore the data, and gives
 # more control
@@ -178,10 +173,14 @@ data = fits[1]['x'][:]
 # each column
 data = fits[1]['x','y'][:]
 
-# General column and row subsets.  As noted above, the data are returned
-# in row sorted order for efficiency reasons.
+# General column and row subsets.
 columns=['index','x','y']
-rows=[1,5]
+rows = [1, 5]
+data = fits[1][columns][rows]
+
+# data are returned in the order requested by the user
+# and duplicates are preserved
+rows = [2, 2, 5]
 data = fits[1][columns][rows]
 
 # iterate over rows in a table hdu