wfdb-python
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Reading MS signal metadata in rdheader
In general, it's useful to be able to read record metadata without reading the signals.
For multi-segment records, however, rdheader just reads the MS header by default (rd_segments=False), which means it doesn't read any of the signal metadata (e.g. signal names and units).
With rd_segments=True, rdheader reads the signal metadata and also all of the segment headers, which are not always needed.
For some applications it would be useful to have a middle ground of reading the multisegment header and the layout header, but not any of the segment headers. (Note that this is what isigopen does.)
I think this might make sense as the default behavior, since reading the signal metadata is a very common use of rdheader.