Changes Coming to iraf.net

Starting Tuesday, July 26th, we will begin updating iraf.net to use a new version of the CMS system. This change is driven primarily by the deprecated support for the PHP4 engine currently used in the original (and ancient) code base. This is a long-overdue update but one that I hope will do much to modernize the site and add new features.

Most of the work will be done in the background and deployed once it is stable, however due to the unavoidable delays in getting around to this, parts of the current site will likely be inoperable for up to several days. This includes the ability to create new accounts, login to existing accounts, and perhaps post new messages or replies to the forums. I apologize for the inconvenience and promise to bring up all the features as soon as possible.

While the site is down, please feel free to contact us at admin@iraf.net and we'll try to answer your questions via email until the forums are fully restored. Thanks in advance for your patience.

NUMBER: 581
MODULE: splot
SYSTEM: V2.15-
DATE: Mon Jun 6 17:21:27 MST 2011
FROM: valdes

BUG: When using the deblending options a memory free error occurs with 64-bit versions. This is caused by allocating an integer array and freeing it as a real array.

STATUS: Fixed in future patches and releases. [Note: Patched binaries for affected architectures can be found in ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/v215/support/arch>/x_onedspec.e].

A number of system enhancements are underway as part of integrating IRAF with the Virtual Observatory, in particular is the ability to seamlessly use data tables returned by VO data services as input to IRAF tasks. This has a number of implications I'll write about later, but one early pay-off of this work is an enhanced image template interface in the core system that is now in testing internally. If you aren't sure what an "image template" is, think of the "*.fits" or @files that let you pass lists of images to IRAF tasks for processing.

In the enhanced templates, things like MEF files (and soon, tables) can be expanded automatically using the @-file operator to let any task that takes an image list process the extensions automagically. Additionally, selection of images based on image header keywrods can also be done dynamically using expressions in the template strings. For example, consider the following templates:

@file*	expand all files beginning w/ 'file'
@file//".fits"	append ".fits" to contents of 'file'
@mef.fits	expand all (image) extensions of an MEF file
@mef.fits[SCI]	select SCI extensions from MEF file
@mef.fits[SCI,2][noinherit]	select v2 SCI extns, add kernel param
@mef.fits[1-16x2]	select range of extensions from MEF file
@mef.fits[+1-8]	create a list of extensions for an MEF
*.fits[1:100,1:100]	append section to all FITS images
@@file[1:100,1:100]	append section to expanded MEFs in 'file'
*.fits[filter?='V']	select images w/ FILTER keyword containing 'V'
@*.fits[gain==3.0]	select image extns where GAIN keyword is 3.0
*.fits[filter?='V';gain==2.5]	select using multiple OR's expressions

These templates could be used e.g. to run IMSTAT on all the extensions of a FITS file with a single command, as in

cl> imstat @mef.fits

instead of

cl> imext mef.fits output=file > list.dat cl> if (imext.nimages > 0) >>> imstat @list.dat cl> del list.dat

where before it would have been necessary to expand the extensions explicitly using a second task into a standard @file. Notice how the other templates provide even more refined selection of the extensions, either within a single MEF or across multiple images.

These changes are all fully backward compatible but provide new syntax to give users a powerful and compact way to dynamically build image lists for use by all tasks. These new features will be especially useful for script developers tired of managing temp files of image lists, or those who just need to quickly examine MEF files or a directory of images.

Leave a message or post a comment if you're interested in getting an early peek at these new features. [Note that a small source patch to your system and a relink will be required].

NUMBER: 580
MODULE: imcombine and variants
SYSTEM: -V2.15.1
DATE: Fri Apr 1 10:53:41 MST 2011
FROM: valdes

BUG:When the grow options is used with masks or partially overlapping data a segmentation could occur. This is because when data is absent (because of non-overlap) or excluded (because of mask) an identifier value was not initialized. The only workaround is to not use the grow options.

STATUS: Fixed for future patches and releases.

NUMBER: 579
MODULE: onedspec.specplot
SYSTEM: V2.15
DATE: Thu Mar 31 10:41:56 MST 2011
FROM: fitz

BUG: SPECPLOT can sometimes throw a segmentation violation or not recognize valid input spectra due to an incorrect macro definition on 64-bit platforms (linux64 and macintel only).

STATUS: This has been fixed for the next release. A patched x_onedspec.e binaries can be installed from ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/v215/support//x_onedspec.e where the is either 'linux64' or 'macintel'.

NUMBER: 578
MODULE: splot, scombine, fxcor, identify tasks, dispcor, disptrans
SYSTEM: v2.15-V2.15.1a (64-bit platforms only)
DATE: Tue Mar 8 21:57:38 MST 2011
FROM: fitz

BUG: The 64-bit port changes to iraf$noao/lib/smw.h improperly added a P2R() macro to the APLOW/APHIGH macro declarations. This was causing tasks with 2-D data to make an out-of-bounds request for data and leading to and error message such as

ERROR: Pixel subscript out of bounds (spec.fits)

It has become common for people to use Sersic model profiles for galaxy simulations. ARTDATA only had exponential disks (Sersic index of 1) and De Vaucouleurs model (Sersic index of 4). General Sersic profiles have been added to ARTDATA for future releases of the noao package and is also available now as a patch.

An IRAF v2.15.1a Patch release is now available from the IRAF anonymous ftp archive at

ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/v215/PCIX

This patch is a minor update of the IRAF v2.15.1 release for all 32- and 64-bit Linux and Mac OSX systems. It is being made available now to address the following specific issue:

• Potential Data Corruption on 32-bit Images

In addition, several bug that were discovered in the weeks since the initial v2.15.1 patch are also fixed in this release. We apologize for asking users to install another patch so soon after a previous release, except for the discovery of another major system bug affecting all tasks we do not forsee another patch being required for at least 6 months. The version number is meant to reflect the minor changes to the system implied by this release.

Details of this patch and upgrade instructions may be found in the release announcement below.

NUMBER: 577
MODULE: dohydra, dofibers, doargus, do3fiber
SYSTEM: -V2.15.1
DATE: Fri Feb 11 12:30:46 MST 2011
FROM: valdes

BUG: The tasks will shorten root input image names to six characters by using the first five and last characters. Depending on the style of image names this can result in name conflicts. The reason for this shortening is no longer known so it is now considered a bug. Workarounds are to be aware of this and rename image names to avoid conflicts.

STATUS: This is fixed in the next release. The fix is to modify the file $iraf/noao/imred/src/fibers/proc.cl as shown (replace lines 125 to 129 with "extn = extn // ".ms"). If you don't have permission to make this change then copy the file to your iraf "home$" directory, edit it, load the desired package, and then override the definition of the file with "redefine proc = home$proc.cl".

An IRAF v2.15.1 Patch release is now available from the IRAF anonymous ftp archive at

ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/v215/PCIX/

• Potential Data Corruption on 64-bit Systems
• Support for Double-Precision FITS images on 64-bit Systems
• Remove License Restrictions from the XYACC Compiler
• Backward-Compatability for NHEDIT tasks

Details of this patch and upgrade instructions may be found in the release announcement below.