combine (version 3.2)

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This routine combines the event files produced by frfread to produce unprocessed, unfiltered event files. The observation mode of an event file is specified by about 70 FITS keywords. Event files which have identical values for all of these keywords are merged into a single event file for further processing.

Groups of event files with fewer than 500 (GIS) or 1000 (SIS) events are not combined. This is because such small files are generally created when ASCA is changing modes, and these trasitional mode data should not be used for scientific analysis.

After a group is combined, the raw event files in that group are deleted. After all groups are combined a number of transitional mode "scraps" are left over. Again, these files do not contain useful information, so they are not distributed. Nevertheless the scraps are tar-ed together and later saved as a trend product in case they are needed for diagnostic information.

The ORIGMODE FITS keyword is added to each combined event file At this stage the value of this keyword is the same as the value of the DATAMODE keyword. When SIS FAINT mode files are converted to BRIGHT and BRIGHT2 mode, the ORIGMODE keyword can be used to distinguish on-board bright mode files from converted bright mode files.

Also the TLMIN1 and TLMAX1 keywords are added to each combined event file. These give the minimum and maximum values of the TIME column and may be needed by downstream software.

STOOLS called:

  1. cmerge
  2. equals
  3. floatcmp
  4. gissortcode
  5. gissortsplit
  6. sis0sortcode
  7. sis0sortsplit
  8. sis1sortcode
  9. sis1sortsplit

Utility scripts called:

  1. add_fits_keyword
  2. dump_table
  3. exception
  4. file_to_log
  5. generate_filename
  6. keyword_exists
  7. log_entry
  8. milestone
  9. read_fits_keyword
  10. read_parfile
  11. sort_test
  12. stool_test