README FOR Sun/IRAF VERSION 2.14.1 Orinal Release: September 16, 2008 Current Patch Level V2.14.1-EXPORT ############################################################################## 16-Sep-2008 *** Initial V2.14.1 EXPORT Release *** (SunOS and Solaris on Sparc CPU) IRAF V2.14 is a major-version release of the system and requires a FULL INSTALLATION of the package. The Installation Guide (suniraf.ps.Z) contains a detailed description of the installation process for both first-time installations and updates to existing systems. Installation will require downloading the AS, IB, and NB distribution files from this directory. The AS distribution is common to all Sun/IRAF platforms and is required for any installation. There are separate sets of binaries (the IB and NB distributions) for each Sun/IRAF platform and only those binaries required for a particular platform will need to be downloaded. Sun/IRAF V2.14 supports the following platforms: System Distribution ------ ------------ SunOS SOS4 Solaris SSUN All versions are supported with a single IRAF distribution, although you need to install separate binaries for for each platform. The IRAF distribution does not itself include graphics and image display tools; these are distributed separately. XGterm is required for any IRAF task which does vector graphics or which has a GUI. Any of the XImtool, DS9 or SAOimage image display servers may be used for image interaction. See ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/x11iraf/ for the latest X11IRAF tools (XGterm/XImtool) and SAO for information about DS9. See also the post-distribution notes at the end of this file. These are continually updated after the release as any problems are encountered. ############################################################################## Contents -------- 1. Introduction 1.1 The Sun/IRAF V2.14 Distribution 1.2 Who Should Upgrade? 1.3 IRAF User Support 2. Highlights of this Release 3. Installing Sun/IRAF 3.1 Things to Watch Out For 4. X11/GUI Support 4.1 The GUIAPPS External Package 4.2 24-bit XImtool Support (Coming Soon!) 5. Notes Added Since the Initial Release ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1 THE Sun/IRAF V2.14 DISTRIBUTION ---------------------------------- Sun/IRAF V2.14 is a port of IRAF to Sparc CPU platforms running SunOS 4 or Solaris operating systems. README This file as.ssol.gen.gz All-Sources (main IRAF distribution) (35 Mb) ib.sos4.sun.gz Core system binaries for SunOS 4 (26 Mb) ib.ssol.sun.gz Core system binaries for Solaris (42 Mb) nb.sos4.sun.gz NOAO package binaries for SunOS (30 Mb) nb.ssol.sun.gz NOAO package binaries for Solaris (35 Mb) suniraf.ps.gz Sun/IRAF Installation Guide (compressed) suniraf.ms.gz Sun/IRAF Installation Guide (troff source) unixsmg.ps.gz IRAF Site Manager's Guide (compressed) unixsmg.ms.gz IRAF Site Manager's Guide (troff source) Each of the AS, IB, and NB distribution files is available as a single file for more convenient downloading over high-bandwidth Internet connections. The Installation Guide provides detailed instructions on how to use these files to install IRAF. A complete installation requires that the user obtain the AS source distribution (in this case the 'as.ssol.gen.gz' file) and at least one set of IB and NB binary distribution (e.g. 'ib.ssol.sun.gz' and 'nb.ssol.sun.gz' for a Solaris system, or 'ib.sos4.sun.gz' and 'nb.sos4.sun.gz' for a SunOS 4 system). 1.3 WHO SHOULD UPGRADE? ----------------------- IRAF V2.14 is a major-version IRAF release for all supported IRAF platforms. Support for older versions of IRAF is limited so sites running earlier versions of IRAF should update to the new version of IRAF. There may be incompatibilities between V2.14 and earlier versions of IRAF, so updating in the middle of an analysis program might not be advisable. In general, reducing data using different versions of IRAF will work in most cases, but there can be complications due to parameter or algorithm changes. Users are advised to review the system revisions notes for changes that may affect them. Large installations may want to keep and older version of IRAF around to give users time to complete their programs before switching to the new version of IRAF (e.g. here at NOAO, the "cl" command runs V2.14, and an "irafo" command will bring up the older V2.12.2b release). An 'iraf' command can be created by copying the hlin$cl.csh script and defining a value for $iraf that points to the old version at the top of the file. Note that only one version if the system can be "installed" at any one time for compilation, i.e. links such as for 'xc' and 'mkpkg', users will need to override this in their environment if they wish to compile against an older version of IRAF. Questions about this may be posted to http://iraf.net 1.3 IRAF USER SUPPORT --------------------- Although NOAO has resumed limited development of IRAF, it has not resumed the general email-based user support system. New external packages such as NVO and NEWFIRM being developed as part of other initiatives will be released with information pointer users to project-specific help available for those packages. This project-based help will be supported by NOAO for some period of time during development and initial deployment, but does not include core IRAF support at this time. The community-based site, http://iraf.net, will remain primarily responsible for IRAF and most external package support. IRAF developers will continue to participate in the IRAF.NET forums even for those projects not being supported by NOAO, and for question posted about projects that might have other support within NOAO. We are counting on input from the community to guide further development of all projects and feedback at IRAF.NET will be used to determine future work undertaken at NOAO. We thank you in advance for your input. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS RELEASE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The primary changes to IRAF V2.14 were done to support the new Mac Intel and Cygwin platforms, as well as fix long-standing issues with the viability of the system on recent Linux and Mac OS X systems. However, a number of key features and tasks will be new to users. The following list is a partial summary of changes in this release: V2.14 Highlights: ------------------- o ECL Now Default Interpreter Starting with this release, the 'cl' command to start IRAF will invoke the ECL interpreter as the default. Users can still access the old CL by starting with the command "% cl -o" o FITS Now Default Image File Format Starting with this release, FITS will be the default image format for all output images. Use of OIF (i.e. the ".imh" format) is still available by changing the 'imtype' variable setting. o ZPN Projection now supported by all tasks using the MWCS interface The ZPN projection driver from the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit was installed in the MWCS interface. ZPN is a zenithal/azimuthal polynomial projection. o RV.FXCOR now fits Gaussian peaks using double precision. Additionally the HJD output is printed to 5 decimals precision. o Access to 2MASS and USNO-B1 catalogs from the ASTCAT package o Display overlay colors may be set with expressions - The masks specified by the 'bpmask' or 'overlay' parameters may now be set using image data or colors represented by expressions. See the 'Overlay Colors' section of the DISPLAY help page for details. - Transparent masks (using the name 'transparent' or a mapped color less than zero) are now permitted. o IMEDIT has the following changes: 1. A new option to do vector constant replacement was added. This is particularly useful for editing bad pixel masks. 2. New options '=', '<', and '>' to replace all pixels with values ==, <=, or >= to the value at the cursor with the constant value was added. This is useful for editing object masks. 3. The '?' help page is now set by an environment variable rather than hardcoded to a file in lib$src. The environment variable is imedit_help and is set in tv.cl to point to the file in the source directory. o New Tasks In the System: images.tv: BPMEDIT - Examine and edit bad pixel masks associated with images images.imcoords: MKCWCS - Make or update a simple celestial wcs MKCWWCS - Make or update a simple celestial/wavelength 3D wcs lists: RAVERAGE - Compute running average, standard deviation and envelope noao.nproto: SKYSEP - Compute are separation between two RA/Dec values SKYGROUP - Group a list containing RA/Dec into spatial sublists o New Parameters images.imutil: HSELECT - Added a 'missing' parameter to be used when keywords isn't in header. o New Environment Variables - Two new environment variables are available for use in IRAF networking: KS_RETRY, if defined, is the number of retry attempts using the default rsh (or KSRSH) protocol. The task will sleep for 1 second between attempts and then loop back to try again to make the connection. This is meant to avoid potential clashes between multiple machines connecting simultaneously as with the pipeline. KS_NO_RETRY which when defined instructs the task *not* to attempt a retry using the fallback rexec protocol. This test is made after the KS_RETRY checks to allow for various combinations of settings to allow the code to skip retries entirely (i.e. define only KS_NO_RETRY), retry using the default protocol but not with rexec (i.e. define KS_RETRY as some value and set KS_NO_RETRY), or retry only with rexec (i.e. old behavior, don't define anything). o Increased Buffer Sizes - Various environment buffers were increased to allow for longer settings of $PATH or other strings that would occassionally overflow. - SZ_IMNAME was increased from 79 to 128 characters. - SZ_ERRMSG in system error strings increased from 80 chars to SZ_LINE (1023) to allow inclusion of full paths in error messages. - The FFT procedures in the VOPS interface now permit vectors of 2^31 points (up from 2^15) o New Developer Libraries. Several new libraries are available for SPP developers: - Installed the 'mef' library from the FITSUTIL package for doing general MEF manipulation. This will remove the dependency on FITSUTIL from several external packages. - Installed the 'dbc' routines from the FITSUTIL package. This is an extension to the imgead header database routines that allow for a comment field to be created/manipulated in the header. - xtools$xtargs.x is a simple interface to parse an argument string consisting of a list of whitespace separated keyw=value pairs. V2.14.1 Highlights: ------------------- o A large fraction of the help pages have been corrected for typo and spelling errors (due entirely to the diligent work of Jason Quinn) o Fixed a number of bugs in the FITS kernel related to the number of pad lines created in new images. o "login.cl" file changed. This fixes a non-fatal problem in which a 'syntax error' is printed at startup. o A long-standing bug in which the CL complains of "ambiguous parameter" was fixed. o Various PLOT package tasks (PROW(S)/PCOL(S)/PVECTOR) can now draw box histograms as an option. o GEOMAP now outputs 5 decimals of precision versus the old 3. o Bug fixes to the CL strstr() builtin functions. o Implemented a new "strdic(str,dict)" builtin function similar to the SPP procedure of the same name. The first character of 'dict' will be used as a delimiter to define a dictionary string, i.e. a set of string values like "|foo|bar|rab|oof|". The function returns the index of the 'str' that occurs in the dictionary, or zero if not found. 'str' may be a substring of the dictionary string for a match to be made. For example cl> =strdic ("bar", "|foo|bar|rab|oof|") 2 cl> s1 = "FOO" cl> =strdic (strlwr(s1), "|foo|bar|rab|oof|") 1 The second example shows how to do a case-insensitive match against the dictionary. o Added new NHEDIT task to the IMAGES.IMUTIL package. This is a modified version of the HEDIT task but allows comments to be added to keywords. Additionally, commands may be take from a file, allowing complex header editing operations to be 'scripted'. o Added an option to the CL 'erract' environment variable that causes the system to 'beep' when an error is encountered. This is enabled by default but may be disabled by changing the 'erract' string to define 'nobeep' instead of 'beep'. o Added an new FIO polling interface to allow tasks to be written which can take input from a number of sources (e.g. servers needing to monitor several sockets or files for data). o The EXPORT task has a new 'zscalem()' builtin function for doing image intensity scaling through masks. See the help page for details. o The INTERP task now works in double precision and has no data limit. o The RV package task FXCOR now does the peak fitting in double-precision. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. INSTALLING Sun/IRAF ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The procedure for installing Sun/IRAF is unchanged from earlier versions of Sun/IRAF. Refer to the Sun/IRAF Installation Guide (suniraf.ps.Z) for detailed installation instructions. A full installation, as for any major release, will be required. The installation guide contains the full installation instructions (see also the notes below) but one thing is worth emphasizing here: the installation will be simplified if you set up the iraf directories as follows: /iraf root of iraf related files /iraf/iraf root iraf directory (AS dist) /iraf/irafbin iraf bin dirs go here /iraf/irafbin/bin.ssun Solaris binaries for core system /iraf/irafbin/noao.bin.ssun Solaris binaries for noao packages /iraf/irafbin/bin.sparc SunOS binaries for core system /iraf/irafbin/noao.bin.sparc SunOS binaries for noao packages : : /iraf/extern external packages (tables etc.) Here "" is the path where all this is located, e.g., "/u3/iraf" on the IRAF development system here at NOAO. The path can be anything, although it is best to keep it short. You might want to also set up a symbolic link "/iraf" pointing to the "/iraf" directory. This allows all iraf files to be referred to relative to /iraf, regardless of where the files actually are located, and agrees with the default configuration used in the distribution files. Having such a link when IRAF is served from a central NFS system also allows all clients in the network to use a common "/iraf/iraf" root directory regardless of the NFS mount points. Graphically such a tree would look something like (for a RedHat-only system) /iraf / \ (AS) /iraf /irafbin / \ (IB) bin.ssun noao.bin.ssun (NB) The graph indicates where each of the three distribution sets should be unpacked. The "iraf root directory" in this case is /iraf/iraf, this is the value you enter to the install script. See the installation guide for details, specifically the Appendices which give a complete examples. A separate set of CORE and NOAO binaries is provided for each architecture. The all-sources (AS) distribution supports both architectures. The binaries which are correct for your system are identified by the "Distribution" type, however when creating the IRAF tree for unpacking the system you should create directories according to the "Architecture" name or they will not be recognized. 3.1 THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR --------------------------- Please see the release notes for information on what has changed in V2.14, and things to watch out for. As with any major release, we STRONGLY recommend that each user reinitialize their 'uparm' directory to pick up the numerous task and package parameter changes in this release. IRAF V2.14 does not require this if you are upgrading from V2.12, but it is still strongly recommended. The uparm directory may be reinitialized by issuing a new MKIRAF command prior to logging into the system. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. X11/GUI SUPPORT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- IRAF V2.14 includes full support for the X11IRAF utilities - these include 'xgterm' for xterm-compatible terminal emulation and graphics, and 'ximtool' for image display under X. The X11IRAF package is not included in IRAF; you need to get it and install it separately, as you would any other X software. X11IRAF is available in /iraf/x11iraf on the main IRAF network server (iraf.noao.edu) or from http://iraf.net. This software is continually under development and new versions appear on a timetable independent of that for the main IRAF distribution. Other IRAF-compatible GUIs can also be used with IRAF, e.g. DS9 or SAOimage. Users should check the appropriate web sites at SAO for the latest releases and new about these applications. 4.1 THE GUIAPPS EXTERNAL PACKAGE -------------------------------- Some time ago we started a project to develop prototype IRAF applications with integral GUIs (graphical user interfaces). These applications have since served their purpose in prototyping new technology for science GUIs and component-based applications in IRAF. The GUI applications are much more than just technology prototypes however: these are very useful science applications with many new features, with a nice graphical user interface to boot. With the release of IRAF V2.11.3 and X11IRAF V1.2 several years ago, it became possible to wrap up work on the GUI prototypes and get them out for people to use. The prototype GUI applications are contained in the package GUIAPPS available from the /iraf/extern directory of the IRAF archive, and contain the following tasks: demo - GUI Demo Task spt - SPECTOOL Package xhelp - GUI Help Browser Task xrv - GUI Version of the RV Package xapphot - GUI Aperture Photometry Package Note that starting with V2.12, the XHELP task is included as part of the core system as a special device type (e.g. "help implot dev=gui" will run HELP as a GUI task). The GUI tasks require that the user be running an XGterm graphics window (from X11IRAF) in order to display the GUI: Xterm users WILL NOT be able to use the GUIs presently. To install the package users should download the 'guiapps.tar.gz' file from the IRAF archive directory and uncompress/untar it in the local external package directory (typically /iraf/extern). Detailed installation inst- ructions are 'guiapps.readme' file in the same directory. More information of the GUIAPPS package is available from the project page at http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/web/projects/guiapps/. 4.2 24-bit XImtool Support (Coming Soon!) ----------------------------------------- As of this writing, support for XImtool running under "24-bit" TrueColor displays is in progress. Releases and further details will be forthcoming on the iraf.net and iraf.noao.edu web sites. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. NOTES ADDED SINCE THE LAST RELEASE. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------