National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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                      RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.31.1
                             December 16, 2022
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HEASoft 6.31.1 is a patch-level release driven by bug fixes in
the spectral tools (HEASPTOOLS), the Python interface to HEASoft
(HEASoftPy), and in NICER mission data analysis software.

There is a patch installer utility available, which can be used
to update existing 6.31 source code installations to 6.31.1:

 https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/lheasoft/patch.html

This link also describes how to patch existing 6.31 pre-compiled
binary installations with the 6.31.1 updates.

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                                    HEACORE
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- (heautils) Fixed bug in expand_item_list() for multiple long lines
  in an input file; bug fixes to prevent memory overflows when reading
  @filename with very long lines

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                                    ATTITUDE
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- prefilter: (v4.8) Fixed long-standing bug for some NICER cases
  reported as 'error: satellite has re-entered'; constraints are
  now applied by mission during TLE refinement to prevent values
  from going haywire

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                                     HEASP
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- (arfII) Fixed incorrect unit labels, added error check when creating
  the extension, and forced the ENERG_LO, ENERG_HI, and SPECRESP to be
  columns even if they have identical values (which should not happen).

- (rmf) Added information on total response and energies of largest
  response to the rmf::disp output. Fix to rmf::multiplyByModel: need
  to subtract the first channel number, as given by TLMIN4 and stored
  in m_FirstChannel, from the 'for' loop settings.

- (SPio) Added error trapping when writing vector columns.

- Regenerated Python interface with changes to correctly include header
  file modifications and to handle string, arf, and grouping.

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                                   HEASPTOOLS
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- ftgenrsp: Fixed overwrite of effective areas by filter transmissions
  if the latter are input.

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                                     MAXI
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- mxversion: Updated version string to "15Nov2022_V02.2"

- mxdownload_wget: Corrected URLs in help

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                                     NICER
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- NicerUtils.pm: Fixed bug that causes SOLARPHI/SOLAR_PHI error when
  running nicerl3-spect (reads columns from multiple filter files,
  both .mkf and .mkf.gz)

- nibackgen3C50: Fixed CFITSIO filtering bug in case where many
  detectors are disabled

- nicerl3-lc: Added more informative warning (not error) message when
  XSPEC plot fails (e.g. when PGPLOT's PNG driver is not available)

- nicerl3-spect: Fixed bug handling UFAFILE parameter when not
  required by the background model; fixed erroneous display of
  Scorpeon file bins; added more informative warning (not error)
  message when XSPEC plot fails (e.g. when PGPLOT's PNG driver is
  not available)

- niexposum: Fixed undefined subroutine (NicerUtils)

- niswbkgspect / niswbkglc: Fixed bug occurring when average
  number of FPMs is non-integer

- space weather tools: Updated the background event file default
  CALDB location

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                                     XSPEC
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- Xspec patch 12.13.0c is included in this release.
  For details, please see the Xspec issues page:

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

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                                  HEASoftPy
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New version 1.2.1:

- Always use system par files (i.e. $HEADAS/syspfiles) instead of
  local par files (~/pfiles) during installation, and in the setup
  for the utils.local_pfiles module (creates temporary pfiles
  directories e.g. for scripting), exclude ~/pfiles from the
  returned PFILES seting.

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                                 Configuration
********************************************************************************

- lynx (third-party linemode browser used by "fhelp"): Added the
  '--disable-idna' flag (disable IDNA support) to the lynx configure
  command: Support for IDNA (Internationalized Domain Names in
  Applications) is unnecessary for fhelp, and this should fix some
  rare macOS build problems in which having multiple iconv libraries
  results in undefined symbols. This issue is described further at
  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57734434/libiconv-or-iconv-undefined-symbol-on-mac-osx

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby