code: def read_FITS_cols(infile, cols=None):  # noqa: N802
      
      with fits.open(infile, memmap=False) as ftab:
          extnum = 0
          extfound = False
          for extn in ftab:
              if 'tfields' in extn.header:
                  extfound = True
                  break
              extnum += 1
  
          if not extfound:
              print('ERROR: No catalog table found in ', infile)
              raise ValueError
  
          # Now, read columns from the table in this extension if no column names
          # were provided by user, simply read in all columns from table
          if _is_str_none(cols[0]) is None:
              cols = ftab[extnum].data.names
  
          # Define the output
          outarr = [ftab[extnum].data.field(c) for c in cols]
  
      return outarr
docs: Read columns from FITS table