National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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                         RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.9
                                March 29, 2010
********************************************************************************

The HEASoft 6.9 release is primarily driven by updates to the Swift and
Suzaku mission software, but also includes updates to several packages
which have been revised to mirror the current development versions in
use at the HEASARC.

As before, configuration-related changes thoughout the package means that
users who already have HEASoft v6.x.x installed will need to completely
replace their software installation; there is no clean way to simply
overlay this new release or to update an existing installation.

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                                 CONFIGURATION
********************************************************************************

- Mac OS X:

  * 32- vs. 64-bit builds:

    Our configuration now handles the setting of architecture-related
    compiler flags when necessary (i.e. on newer Mac hardware [running
    OS X 10.6.x / Darwin 10.x / Snow Leopard]).  That is, users no
    longer need to set e.g. C-related "-arch i386" flags (as in HEASOFT
    v6.8) in order to make the default 64-bit C compilers play nice
    with 32-bit Fortran compilers.  Pure 64-bit builds (in theory
    allowed by gfortran with the -m64 flag) have proven buggy and are
    therefore not supported yet.

    Also note that the native HEASOFT build environment now uses the
    standard "LDFLAGS" instead of "LD_FLAGS" (though users should not
    need to bother with this variable either).

  * 32- vs. 64-bit Perl:

    Added new environment variable HD_BUILD_ARCH_32_BIT to flag
    whether the build (specifically, the Perl libraries) was done in
    32-bit mode.  This is configured and punched into the heasoft
    setup script, exported into the users environment if non-empty,
    and then used in the 'lhea-fixperl'-generated HEASOFT Perl script
    header to switch on the VERSIONER_PERL_PREFER_32_BIT flag (if
    HD_BUILD_ARCH_32_BIT=yes) before executing the script.  Thus,
    users no longer need to be concerned with setting
    VERSIONER_PERL_PREFER_32_BIT by hand.

- Perl issues with pre-compiled binaries:

  * (Mac OS X) HEASOFT pre-compiled Darwin binaries are 32-bit, so the
    new environment variable HD_BUILD_ARCH_32_BIT is set to "yes" and
    used by HEASOFT Perl scripts as described above.

  * The pre-compiled binary configure script tests for any mismatch
    between the version of Perl used at GSFC and the users configured
    $PERL ($LHEAPERL) by running perldemo2 and looking for undefined
    symbol errors in the captured output.  If a potential mismatch is
    found, the user is warned and directed to our web page of proposed
    solutions.

********************************************************************************
                                    CFITSIO
********************************************************************************

Version 3.24 - 26 January 2010

   - modified fits_translate_keywords so that it silently ignores any
     illegal ASCII characters in the value or comment fields of the input
     FITS file. Otherwise, fpack would abort without compressing input
     files that contained this minor violation of the FITS rules.

   - added support for Super H cpu in fitsio2.h
   
   - updated funpack to correctly handle the -S option, and to use a
     more robust algorithm for creating temporary output files.
   
   - modified the imcomp_compress_tile routine to support the NOCOMPRESS
     debugging option for real*4 images.

Version 3.23 - 7 January 2010

   - reduced the default value for the floating point image quantization
     parameter (q) from 16 to 4.  This parameter is used when tile compressing
     floating point images.  This change will increase the average compression
     ratio for floating point images from about 4.6 to about 6.5 without losing 
     any significant information in the image.
     
   - enhanced the template keyword parsing routine to reject a header
     template string that only contains a sequence of dashes.

   - enhanced the ASCII region file reading routine to allow tabs as well
     as spaces between fields in the file.

   - got rid of bogus error message when calling fits_update_key_longstr

   - Made the error message more explicit when CFITSIO tries to write
     to a GZIP compressed file.  Instead of just stating "cannot write
     to a READONLY file", it will say "cannot write to a GZIP compressed
     file".

********************************************************************************
                                    CCFITS
********************************************************************************

- Bug fix in Table::copyData.  New Columns' parent pointers must be reset
  to the new Table.  Otherwise Columns created through the FITS::copy
  public function will not be modifiable. (02/10)

********************************************************************************
                                      APE  
********************************************************************************

2010-01-19 Ape 2.6
  Changes Made:
    * Add PILGetLong function, needed for XPI compatibility.
    * Improve handling of undefined and infinite/nan values.
      Correctly report (debug only) when such values are used
      for a parameter value. Flag as an error when such values
      are used in ranges.

********************************************************************************
                                      AST
********************************************************************************

- Work-around for a GCC 4.4.2 problem discovered under Fedora 12: the
  pre-processor seems to simply throw away backslashes that escape 
  newlines in the input header file.  Supplied by David Berry (JAC
  Hawaii, http://starlink.jach.hawaii.edu/starlink/AST)

********************************************************************************
                                    PGPLOT
********************************************************************************

- GIF driver: fix buffer overflow detected under Ubuntu 9.10 with GCC 4.4.1.

- Ensured that plot is opened (for non-interactive plots) if text is the
  first output.

********************************************************************************
                                    ATTITUDE
********************************************************************************

- imagetrans: Fixed bug iterating input image boundary.

********************************************************************************
                                   CALTOOLS
********************************************************************************

- gcorrmf: increased size of keyword array to prevent memory faults.

********************************************************************************
                                      FV
********************************************************************************

- Fix graph options editing bugs.  Fix export HDU cause Application
  Error bug.

- POW: Fix missing rootx and rooty error message. Fix Editing Objects
  initialization error message.  Fix graph options editing bugs.

- Update to XPA 2.1.11 (released 7 December 2009).
  http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/xpa/

********************************************************************************
                                    HEAGEN
********************************************************************************

- SwiftClock.pm: changed sCC() to only read ascii clock file once to
  avoid runtime penalty.

- swco.dat: new version valid through: 2010Feb22 at 15:20:12UTC

********************************************************************************
                                    HEASARC
********************************************************************************

- fovdsp: Replaced explicit \ with char(92) to get round problems with
  it being handled in different ways.

********************************************************************************
                                   HEATOOLS
********************************************************************************

- ftmerge: Add 'insertrow' parameter (row number in first input table
  after which remaining input tables will be inserted).  If insertrow
  exceeds the number of rows in the first table, any additional rows
  between the last row of the first table and insertrow are filled with
  zeros.

********************************************************************************
                                     XIMAGE
********************************************************************************

- xwebquery.pl: Fix issue on machines where `hostname` gives a name
  that resolves to a loopback IP address. Removed explicit local
  IP/port binding when connecting to external host.

********************************************************************************
                                    XSELECT
********************************************************************************

- Fixed bug which could cause confusion between two keys that were
  partial matches.  The only case that this actually matters appears
  to be for Einstein IPC files.

- xselect.mdb: Added a couple of entries that were missing for
  Einstein Observatory.

********************************************************************************
                                     XSPEC
********************************************************************************

New features in v12.6.0:

The main improvements in version 12.6.0 are to XSPEC's plotting capabilities:

  - Multi-panel plotting is now supported for all combinations except 
    contour plots.  For example, "plot data model resid ratio" will 
    produce a 4-panel plot on a single page. Up to 6 panels can be 
    plotted in this manner. 

  - There are many choices for axis units.  These can be selected
    using the "setplot energy" and "setplot wave" commands. For
    example, "setplot energy GeV" uses GeV on the x- and y-axes.
    "setplot wave" also has a new "perhz" option for displaying 
    the Y-axis in 1/Hz units.
    
  - The "setplot" command has a new "redshift <z>" option for shifting
    displayed energies to the source frame.
    
Other new features:

  - New models :
       ireflect is a convolution model based on the pexriv code.
       sirf is a multiblackbody self-irradiated funnel
  
  - The normalizations on all power-law models (ie. powerlaw, 
    bknpow, bkn2pow, cutoffpl)can be changed to a flux over an 
    energy range by setting POW_EMIN and POW_EMAX keywords in "xset".
    The powerlaw model then becomes equivalent to the pegpwlw model.

  - The Compton reflection models (b/p)exr(a/i)v and (i)reflect have
    been restructured to use adaptive Gauss-Kronrod quadrature for
    the Greens' function integrals. The precision to which the 
    integrals are calculated can be set allowing a trade-off between
    speed and precision.
    
  - The wrapper functions additiveTable and multiplicativeTable
    give external C++ models access to XSPEC's table model interpolation
    routines (equivalent to the xsatbl and xsmtbl functions for Fortran
    models).

 -  The display of link expressions has been simplified to show only the
    parameter numbers and not the extraneous component information.
    Also "show model" will now only display the model components and
    not the individual parameters.  The parameters can be seen with
    "show par".  

Additional enhancements previously released as patches to 12.5.1:

  - Added the solar abundance data set of Asplund, Grevesse, and Sauval
    (2006) to the list of available tables accessed with the "abund"
    command.
    
  - New "tclout nchan" option for returning the number of channels in a
    spectrum.
    
  - The "save" command now stores relative rather than absolute paths to
    allow easier porting to other machines.
    
  - The recorn model component has been converted from a mixing to a
    multiplicative type.  This allows a model to define multiple recorn
    components.
  
  - A warning message is now issued if a user attempts to load a
    response for a source n when there are still slots to fill for
    source n-1.  This is intended to catch cases where a user mistakenly
    reverses the source and spectrum number input to the "response"
    command.
    
All bug fixes to v12.5.1 released as patches a - o are included in 
v12.6.0.  In addition the following problems have been corrected:

  - It was possible for the addition of a systematic model error to
    actually decrease the overall variance, when it was applied to a
    zero-variance bin that was artificially increased by XSPEC for chi-
    square fitting.
    
  - Bug in "plot ratio" when using "setplot wave" with Hz units.  Y-axis
    model values < 10^-20 were not displayed in plot.
    
  - The comptt model no longer stops and prompts the user when it fails
    during its incomplete gamma calculation.
    
  - The powerlaw model has been modified to avoid a numerical
    instability that could occur if the index were within 10^-12 to
    10^-15 of 1.0.

Please see the Xspec Issues/Patches web page for updates to v12.6.0:

  http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xanadu/xspec/issues/issues.html


********************************************************************************
                                     XSTAR
********************************************************************************

- Fix to bug in the length of the filename used for input of spectrum.


========================== MISSION-SPECIFIC SOFTWARE: ==========================


********************************************************************************
                                     ASCA
********************************************************************************

addascaspec
  * Fixed the check for whether errmeth has been defined so that it is
    case-insensitive.

********************************************************************************
                                     RXTE
********************************************************************************

pcarsp
  * Improve handling of user-supplied dates.

fgabor
  * Fixed buffer overflow that caused crashes under certain compilers.

hextebackest
  * Ignore lack of a QUALITY column in input pha file.

xenon2fits
  * Include TIMEPIXR keyword in output file.

********************************************************************************
                                    SUZAKU
********************************************************************************

Suzaku software Version 16 - Changes since HEASoft v6.8:

-----------------
 Suzaku general:
-----------------

- aepipeline:
         Added bstgti parameter for xistime. Added hxdpi_old parameter to
         allow use of old hxdpi (hxdpi_old) or new hxdpi.

---------------------
 HXD specific tools:
---------------------

- hxdpi:
         Update for the new GSO calibration, which enables users to lower the
         GSO energy threshold from 70 to 50 keV. Uses a new CALDB gain file
         type (gspgpt), which is not backward compatible with the old CALDB
         gain file (gsoght). Writes the keyword GSOOLDPI set to 'F', to
         indicate that the new GSO calibration has been applied. Three new
         parameters have been added:

           hxd_gsogpt_fname - HXD GSO gain parameter table name
           leapfile         - Leap second file name
           orbit            - Orbit filename

         One parameter has been removed:

           hxd_gsoght_fname - HXD GSO gain history table name

- hxdpi_old:
         Identical to the hxdpi released with HEAsoft version 6.8, except that
         it writes the keyword GSOOLDPI set to 'T', to indicate that the old
         GSO calibration has been applied.

- hxdgrade:
         Updated to read GSOOLDPI keyword written by both hxdpi and hxdpi_old
         to determine which CALDB file to use for the pseudo events selection.

- hxdmkbstlc:
         Added support for dead-time correction.

- hxdmkbstspec:
         An editorial error in the definition file, hxdmkbstspec.def, was
         fixed. Help file was updated.


********************************************************************************
                                     SWIFT
********************************************************************************

Swift/BAT

batcelldetect
  * Fix for 'banner' to display SMOOTH_CIRCLE smoothing kernel
  * Fix 'niter=0' option, to prevent segfault
  * Upgrade to fitting library mpfit version 1.2

batclean
  * Fix bkgmodel=@filename.lis, which contained special options
  * Raise hard-coded limite from 20 sources to 200 sources (only
    relevant for output diagnostic file)
  * Fix behavior of balfirst=YES, which never worked properly before
  * New output behaviors, outversion=srcfit and outversion=srccleaned

bateconvert
  * Allow bateconvert to honor requested calfile extension no.

baterebin
  * Allow baterebin to honor requested calfile extension no.

batmaskwtevt
  * Avoid computation of ray-tracing of there are no good events or the
    source passes out of the field of view (saves computational time)
  * Code clean-up

batsurvey
  * Fix to cope with potential bad output behavior by 'ftlist'
  * Add batclean_backexp parameter to enable diagnostic output
  * Re-enable diagnostic routines with check_centroiding=YES


Swift/UVOT

uvotsource
  * Allow passing in an image holding LSS correction factors to use at
    various sky positions.  See the help on the lssfile parameter.

uvotimsum
  * Fixed maskfile processing to use name[extension] instead of
    name+extension since the former is valid for both extension numbers
    and names.
  * Do not discard stderr when running converting METs to UTCs in case
    a useful error message can be provided to the user.
  * Do not require infile(s) to be regular files since they may be openable
    using CFITSIO extended filename syntax.

uvotevtlc
  * Documented the TSTART, TSTOP, TIME, MET, FRACEXP columns in the output
    light curve and the deadtimecorr parameter.

uvotgrplot
  * The background counts plot was reversed with respect to the X-axis.
  * Display the zeroth order position in image coordinates if it is known.

uvotimgrism
  * Write ZEROIMG[XY] keywords with the zeroth order position in image coordinates.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby