CHKPHA (Feb97)               ftools.heasarc               CHKPHA (Feb97)



NAME
    chkpha  --  Checks  the  validity  of  the  mandatory  and  optional 
    keywords of PHA/PI (*.pha) FITS file before input to XSPEC.
    
    
USAGE
    chkpha infile=filename1 outfile=filename2 [chatter=11]
    or,
    chkpha filename1 outfile=filename2
    
    
DESCRIPTION
    The  task  performs the necessary checks, e.g, validity of mandatory
    and optional keywords, on an input FITS file (PHA/PI)  to  determine
    whether  it is in the correct format to be acceptable as an input to
    XSPEC (and hence several other  ftools  tasks),  reporting  back  to
    STDOUT  (and/or  an  ASCII  file)  the  results.   To  get report to
    STDOUT, user needs to use chatter >=10 .   This  task  handles  only
    PHA extension and supports both Type I and Type II formats.
    
    The mandatory keyword checked are:
    
    EXTNAME,  TELESCOP,  INSTRUME, FILTER, EXPOSURE, AREASCAL, BACKFILE,
    BACKSCAL,  CORRFILE,   CORRSCAL,   ANCRFILE,   HDUCLASS,   HDUCLAS1, 
    HDUVERS1, CHANTYPE, DETCHANSA, ERROR (POISERR/STAT_ERR)
    
    The optional keyword checked are:
    
    OBJECT, EQUINOX, RADECSYS, DATE-OBS, TIME-OBS, DATE-END, TIME-END.
    
    NOTE:  Optional  keywords  are  suggested,  as  they  supply further
    detailed informations regarding data sets.
    
    
    
PARAMETERS
    
    infile [character string]
        The input file name containing PHA or PI data
    
    (outfile = pha.log) [character string]
        The name of the  output  log  file  name.   Default  is  set  to
        'pha.log'.   If  user  wants to use other output file name, then
        one has to type outfile=filename in the command line.
    
    (chatter=9) [integer]
        Flag to set the chattyness at execution.  Default value  is  set
        to  9,  which  gives the user the task version and few warnings.
        Lower/higher  values  produces  quieter/verbose  output  on  the 
        screen.
    
    (clobber = yes) [boolean]
        Flag  specifying  whether  or  not  a pre-existing file with the
        same name as that requested as the output file  from  this  task
        will be overwritten.
    
    
EXAMPLES
    
    1.   chkpha test.pha
    or,
    2.   chkpha test.pha outfile=outfilename
    or,
    3.   chkpha test.pha outfile=outfilename chatter=10
    
    
    
BUGS
    None known.
    
    
LOG OF SIGNIFICANT CHANGES:
    v1.0.0 (April, 1997)
    
    
PRIMARY AUTHOR:
    Banashree Mitra Seifert
    HEASARC, NASA/GSFC
    http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ftoolshelp