Please refer to the HEASOFT page for information about the latest release.
Send email to listserv@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov with a blank subject and the words:
subscribe ftoolsnotes yourname
in the body of the message.
Point your web browser at the FTOOLS homepage:
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/lheasoft/
from which you can download FTOOLS (either the source or binary distributions) and will also find an abundance of useful information about installation, usage, etc. However, if you prefer, the main package may be directly downloaded via anonymous ftp:
ftp heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov Name (heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov:yourname): anonymous Password: yourname@your.email.address cd software/lheasoft/release/source binary get ftools5.3.1src.tar.gz quitWith the release of FTOOLS 4.0 the installation became much simpler and a small, text-only installation guide (the file "INSTALL.SOURCE" in the top level directory) is included in the FTOOLS tar file.
As a matter of fact, yes! Binary distributions are available for the IRIX, Linux, Mac OS X, OSF and Solaris architectures. There is no binary distribution available for VMS. Sorry. Go to the HEAsoft Release and Download page to download the binaries you need for your architecture. For directions on setting up FTOOLS for your machine, read the HEASOFT-INSTALL file in the created subdirectory.
The FTOOLS are supported in a number of different environments. Basically, if you are running on a SUN Sparcstation (Solaris), DEC Alpha (OSF/1), Mac OS X (Darwin), SGI (IRIX), a PC or Mac running Linux, or a PC running Cygwin, and you have a proprietary C compiler or the gcc compiler, and a FORTRAN compiler, you should be able to install and run FTOOLS without too much trouble.
Please visit our supported architectures and operating systems web page for more information about building FTOOLS on our supported platforms.
Native Windows platforms are only supported under version 4.2. A binary distribution, which contains all the necessary tools, is provided, so C and Fortran compilers are not needed. Visit the Windows Download page to learn more about and to obtain the software.
SunOS 4 and HPUX are no longer supported.
VMS is no longer supported. FTOOLS 4.0 can be run under OpenVMS on DEC Alphas, though, and remains available.
BEFORE typing "./configure" in your BUILD_DIR set your CC environment variable, eg, setenv CC cc
Approximately 300-350Mb will generally be needed for a full, stand-alone, installation of either the source or binary distribution. The common-FTOOLS-only version is considerably smaller, as is the "dispatch" FTOOLS version. If necessary, you can delete the entire source tree after installation which will save approximately 190Mb. If you do delete the source tree, however, remember that you will not be able to easily apply future updates or patches!
To build the "common" ftools only (futils, time, xpiutils, and examples):
cd lheasoft/src/BUILD_DIR ./configure ./hmake common tcltk >& common.log & ./hmake install >>& common.log &
cd lheasoft/src/BUILD_DIR ./configure --without-tcltk ./hmake common >& common.log & ./hmake install >>& common.log &
First build the common FTOOLS (using "hmake common"). Then issue the hmake command with the name of the subpackage that you want to add (e.g. "make xronos").
Note: This will only work if you already installed from the source code....
Perform a standard Ftools initialization.
For C-shell variants:
setenv LHEASOFT /my/full/lheasoft/path/<arch>
source $LHEAOSFT/lhea-init.csh
or, for Bourne-shell variants:
FTOOLS=/my/full/lheasoft/path/<arch>
export LHEASOFT
. $LHEASOFT/lhea-init.sh
where <arch> is the long architecture-specific directory containing
your Ftools installation.
Perform the Ftools developer initialization (only
necessary when rebuilding any Ftools.)
For C-shell variants:
source $LHEASOFT/BUILD_DIR/devinit.csh
or, for Bourne-shell variants:
. $LHEASOFT/BUILD_DIR/devinit.sh
Go to the directory containing the source code for the tool you wish to build, and use the hmake utility to build it, e.g.:
cd fdummyftool
hmake
(You can capture the output to a log file if you wish.)
If step 3 finishes without error, use hmake to install the tool:
hmake install
This will safely install the new binary, regardless of the
build options selected at configure time, such as the dispatch
build method.
You may be having alignment problems. You need to set the "-f" flag for SUN FORTRAN. Here's a brief description of the problem. On Suns, when a Fortran routine compiled with Sun f77 tries to pass a double-precision number by reference to a C routine compiled with GCC, a bus error may result when the program is run. This is because the SPARC CPU requires doubles to be aligned on 8-byte boundaries, but Sun's compilers use 4-byte alignment and generate extra instructions to manipulate the two halves separately. GCC, however, generates code for 8-byte alignment. The solution is to use `f77 -f', `f77 -dalign', or `gcc -munaligned-doubles'. This affects both SunOS4 and Solaris2, and Sun compilers at least through SC3.0. FTOOLS 3.6 currently compiles all Fortran modules on Suns with `-f'.
Assertion failed: 0, file ./../../../../../src/usr/ccs/lib/libmld/cmrlc_produce.c, line 864 Fatal error in: /usr/lib/cmplrs/cc/ld IOT/Abort trap - core dumped
The linker (/usr/bin/ld) which was shipped with early versions of OSF/1 v3.2 is apparently buggy and needs to be patched. Have your system administrator contact DEC and get patch ID OSF320-094. You *may* be able to get around this in the meantime by turning off optimization (see earlier question).
ld.so.1: warning: /usr/lib/libc.so.1.8 has older revision than expected 9
This happens when you run FTOOLS which have been dynamically linked with various system libraries (the default) in a different environment from where they were built (eg, built under SunOS 4.1.3 and running under Solaris). There is now a flag you can give to "./configure" to prevent this. See the INSTALL file for details.
ld.so.1: fatal: libX11.so.5.0: can't open file: errno=2
You need to have the directory with libX11.so* in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. To do this type
echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
and then look in the different system directories to find libX11.so*. A few suggestions would be
/usr/openwin/lib /usr/X11*/lib /usr/local/X11*/lib /usr/lib/X11*/lib
or ask your system manager.
Once you find your libX11.so* you need to add it to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The easiest is to edit your .login and change the line where you set LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
The CDE in its default setup doesn't source your .login file when you login. There are several ways to get around this. The method we currently recommend is to add the following lines to the file .dtprofile in your home directory:
LHEASOFT=/software/lheasoft/develop/HP-UX_10.10_725/ export LHEASOFT . $LHEASOFT/lhea-init.sh
You will also need to make sure that your path is not set absolutely in your .cshrc but only appended to. It's probably not a good idea to set your path in your .cshrc anyway, do it in your .login, .profile, and/or your .dtprofile files and everything should work.
With the CDE login manager, it is possible to set up your whole site to use the FTOOLS in the CDE system files. We haven't had enough experience here with the CDE to suggest the best way to do this, but system administrators wishing to do this who need more information about the FTOOLS setup in order to do this are encouraged to send us mail via the FTOOLS Help Desk.
> fcalc rh701760.fits[1] fcalc: No match.
Your shell is trying to expand the brackets. You either have to escape the brackets with backslashes (ie, fcalc rh701760.fits\[1\]) or else use the alternate "plus sign" convention (ie, fcalc rh701760.fits+1).
Specify all parameters that you don't want the user prompted for on the command line using the parameter="value" syntax. Specify *all* hidden parameters (you're only going to type it once, so don't whine). For example:
fparkey value="ROSAT" fitsfile="myfile.fits+1" keyword="MISSION" comm="What made this thing" add=yes
In the past, this FAQ mentioned a way to run FTOOLS using mode=h. While not particularly dangerous when used *interactively* by an experienced user, we no longer recommend this method; it's too easy for inexperienced users to shoot themselves in the foot.
DO NOT use mode=h, in scripts! DO NOT use 'pset' to set up an FTOOL to run! (This is the number one generator of "bugs which aren't really bugs" on ftoolshelp.) DO always specify *all* parameters on the command line in scripts.
Most of the FTOOLS now have a clobber parameter. Just set clobber=yes (on the command line or with pset) and your output files will be cheerfully overwritten. In a less hazardous solution, most of the FTOOLS also will clobber an output file if you precede the file name with an exclamation mark. If your favorite FTOOL doesn't obey this convention, let us know, and we'll fix it for the next release.
From the command line "fhelp ftools" will list all of the FTOOLS and Perl scripts with a short description of each. More and more specific help can be requested; for example "fhelp xte" will list the FTOOLS in the XTE subpackage, and "fhelp fdump" will yield the full help page for the fdump FTOOL.
So do I. Luckily, the FTOOLS parameter interface (XPI) uses the GNU readline library, so a full set of command line editing features is available (the same as you'd get in bash, for example). A few of the more useful keys:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| TAB | Filename completion. (Two tabs will show you a list of possible completions if there's an ambiguity). |
| up arrow (or ^p) | Recall previously entered line. |
| down arrow (or ^n) | "Undoes" up arrow. |
| right arrow (or ^f) | Move cursor right on current line. |
| left arrow (or ^b) | Move cursor left on current line. |
| RETURN | Enters the parameter you've just typed. (Your cursor does not need to be at the end of the line.) |
Due to a feature added to one of the core library routines with FTOOLS v4.1, if a string containing a forward slash ('/') is given as the keyword value (eg, in a unix path), only the characters preceding the slash will be interpreted as the keyword's value while those following it will be the comment. When entered interactively in response to fparkey's prompt, surrounding the string in single quotes prevents this parsing. When entered on the command line, however, 2 sets of quotes are required (one single and one double) because unix strips off one set before passing the string to the program. It thus looks like either this:
> fparkey Keyword value[] '/home/bubba/in.fits' Name of FITS file and [ext#][] out.fits Keyword name[] RESPFILEor this:
fparkey value="'/home/bubba/in.fits'" fitsfile=out.fits keyword=RESPFILEThe single quotes must be the innermost set of quotes on the value string.
Descriptions of known bugs (and usually solutions) in the current software release can be found on the HEAsoft Known Bugs page.
Contact us via the FTOOLS Help Desk