National Aeronautics and Space Administration

********************************************************************************
                         RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.24
                                 April 24, 2018
********************************************************************************

The HEASoft 6.24 release is primarily driven by updates to the NICER
data analysis software, bug fixes in the CFITSIO library, and improved
support for Ubuntu and Debian Linux, but also includes other enhancements
and fixes.

As before, configuration-related changes thoughout the package mean that
users who already have HEASoft 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.

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

New since CFITSIO v3.44:

- Bug fix to fits_calc_binning wrapper function, which wasn't filling
  in the returned float variables.


Version 3.44 - April 2018:

- This release primarily patches security vulnerabilities.  We
  strongly encourage this upgrade, particularly for those running 
  CFITSIO in web accessible applications.
  
  In addition, the following enhancements and fixes were made: 

- Enhancement to 'template' and 'colfilter' functionality.  It is now
  possible to delete multiple keywords using wildcard syntax. See
  "Column and Keyword Filtering Specification" section of manual for
  details.

- histo.c uses double precision internally for all floating point
  binning; new double-precision subroutines fits_calc_binningd(),
  fits_rebin_wcsd(), and fits_make_histd(); existing
  single-precision histogram functions still work but convert values
  to double-precision internally.

- New subroutine fits_copy_cols() / ffccls() to copy multiple columns

- Fix in imcompress.c for HCOMPRESS and PLIO compression of unsigned
  short integers.

- Fix to fits_insert_card(ffikey).  It had wrongly been capitalizing
  letters that appeared before an '=' sign on a CONTINUE line.

********************************************************************************
                                     FIMAGE
********************************************************************************

- fimg2tab:

  * Fixed handling of 1D 'images' (light curves from CFITSIO 1-D binning)

  * Added 'extname' parameter to name output extension

  * Fixed bug in handling of swapxy

********************************************************************************
                                     FUTILS
********************************************************************************

- finterp:

  * Fixed handling of string interpolation

  * Improvement: added column description to output instead of default
    'label for field'

  * Added 'copyall' parameter, a boolean which specifies whether all HDUs
    should be copied or not; default is 'YES' for backwards compatibility

  * Transfer TDIMn keyword since the vector array nature is preserved upon
    output.

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

- Updated for compatibility with new Hera web server and HTTPS connections.

- Fixed error when deleting table rows or columns.

********************************************************************************
                                     HEASP
********************************************************************************

- rmf: added estimatedFWHMperChannel method to estimate the FWHM in each
       channel in contrast to estimatedFWHM which estimates it in each
       energy bin; added loadOptimalEnergy method to set the grouping
       array using the Kaastra & Bleeker optimal binning in response energy.
  
- pha: Fixed error in getMinCountsGrouping if Datatype=RATE and
       corrected getMinSNGrouping.

********************************************************************************
                                   HEASPTOOLS
********************************************************************************

- ftgrouppha: added bmin grouping option to group based on minimum
  number of counts per bin in the background spectrum; fixed opt
  grouping option for non-square response matrix; fixed for input
  pha file with Datatype=RATE. Changed respfile parameter to hidden

- ftrbnrmf: Added ecmpmode parameter and optimal binning on the energy axis.

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

- fthedit: Added -PAT* pattern deletion that matches zero or more keywords

- ftmergesort [NEW]: For sorting extremely large FITS files.

- ftpaste: Now uses fits_copy_cols() once instead of fits_copy_col()
  multiple times.

- ftsort: Added signature output text when requesting start row too far;
  added 'startrow' and 'nrows' parameters

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

HEASoft 6.24 includes Xspec 12.10.0c (2018 03/26).  See the Xspec issues
page for more information:

 https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/lheasoft/xanadu/xspec/issues/issues.html

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

Xstar v2.5:

Changes since v2.41:

- Converted from fortran 77 to fortran 90.
   
- Adopted allocated temporary arrays in many routines to save memory.
  
- Changed atomic database from simple arrays to fortran 90 structures.
  No longer  passed as arguments to most routines, now contained as
  derived data types in  a module.
  
- Changed procedure for passing lte level populations in many routines
  in order to save memory.
  
- Added tabulation of continuum-only opacity and spectrum.  Reused
  variable previously used for scattering opacity.  Scattering-only
  spectra are stored in variable zrems, indeces 4 and 5.  New
  variable for continuum-only optical depth.  These are output to
  the ascii file xout_step.log
  
- Suppressed density dependence of type 70 recombination rates for
  hydrogen (only) owing to inconsistency found in the tabulated
  data for this process.

********************************************************************************
                                     EXOSAT
********************************************************************************

- cmadead, exomerge: Fixed error freeing memory

********************************************************************************
                                     NICER
********************************************************************************

NICERDAS Version 4.0:

- niprefilter2 [NEW]: Create augmented NICER-specific filter file
  
- nicer-l1-finalize: Add operations=INVENTORY_MPUS and mpulist_{event,hk}
  to summarize which MPUs have data
  
- nicerl2: Clock calibration now enabled by default in par file
  
- nicermergeclean: Allow clfile=NONE
  
- niextract-events: Write legal FILINnnn keywords
  
- nimaketime: Added latlonregfile support.
  
- niprefilter: Fixed numerical overflow in MPU_*_COUNT values (>32767
  counts per second); Handle case of missing MPU housekeeping (individual
  MPUs); Proper CALDB query for saaregfile; Improve CALDB query to
  include DETNAM; Improve TNULLn output for FITS compliance
  
- niextract-events, nimpucal, nimpumerge, niprefilter: improved
  memory efficiency

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

- (aepipeline) aexisconf.list: Updated through 2015-07-30

********************************************************************************
                                      MISC
********************************************************************************

- Update pointers in legacy task Fortran dynamic memory allocation to
  8-byte integers.  This fixes run-time memory faults under Ubuntu 16.10
  and newer (Debian 9 and newer) which apparently stem from new hardening
  rules that include address randomization.

- Turned off "Universal" binaries on Macs to reduce compatibility problems
  when using third-party packages that contain Python and curl libraries
  (e.g. Anaconda).

- New auxiliary configuration files from the most +recent automake
  distribution (v1.16).  Note that this changes the installed directory
  string for 64-bit Linux from "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-libc2.XX" to
  "x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-libc2.XX".

- Improved handling of file paths containing spaces in init scripts.

- hmake: Fixed regex used when forming list of variables exported from
  the hmakerc file to prevent errors when user's file path contains
  e.g. "/exports".

- Updated Xspec models-only configure option to drop dependencies on
  ape, heaio, heautils, and heainit.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby