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v12.5.1 Aug. 2009
New features
- Gain parameters can now be used in the error, freeze, newpar, thaw, and untie commands by prefixing the command name with the letter “r” (for “response parameter”, the more general category to which gain parameters belong). steppar can now also handle gain parameters. Gain parameters can be displayed either with show parameters or the new show rparameters option.
- The gain command syntax has changed when using multiple sources. To better conform with the rest of XSPEC, it now requires <source number>:<spectrum number> rather than the reverse.
- Gain parameter limit values can be stored in response files, using the keywords GSLOP_MIN, GSLOP_MAX, GOFFS_MIN, and GOFFS_MAX.
- All input and output data filenames can now include CFITSIO/FTOOLS extended-syntax for specifying particular HDUs. As a result, XSPEC can now handle files which contain spectra, ARFs and RMFs in multiple extensions.
- Partial derivative calculations during fitting can now be performed numerically rather than with an approximated analytical expression. This option is chosen in the Xspec.init initialization file.
- If a new minimum is found during a steppar run, steppar now prompts the user for acceptance of the new values. Also the delta statistic column of a steppar run is now obtainable with the tclout steppar delstat option.
- The output warning message has been improved in the case where Levenberg-Marquardt fitting runs into a zero diagonal element in the second derivative matrix. Similarly, the more frequent pegged-parameter messages (due to running into hard limits) is now output at higher chatter levels only.
- All calls to the xanlib dynamic memory allocation function udmget have been removed from the Fortran models in XSPEC's models library. The relevant code has been converted to C++. If a user's local models library still requires the udmget code, they'll need to run initpackage with the new -udmget option.
Additional enhancements previously released as patches to 12.5.0
- Setplot wave x-axis units can be toggled from Hz to angstroms through WAVE_PLOT_UNITS entry in Xspec.init file.
- New tclout gain and tclout sigma options.
- New xs_getVersion function available for those linking their own programs to the XSPEC models library.
- The show parameters option can now take a range of parameters for displaying subsets.
Bug fixes
All bug fixes to v12.5.0 released as patches a - an are included in v12.5.1. In addition the following problems have been corrected.
- After running the arf command, any gain previously applied to the associated RMF will be removed. Previously it was erroneously applying the gain to the new ARF.
- Additional header file inclusions needed in code files to compile with g++-4.4.0
- Extra line-feed characters removed from Ascii text files in the modelData directory. These were causing problems on Solaris 10 w/f90.
- The nthcomp model's internal arrays were hardcoded to a maximum size of 5000 energy bins. The size is now dynamically allocated. (This also affects the diskir model.)
- A Levenberg-Marquardt fit now immediately stops if the fit statistic becomes NaN due to an erroneous model calculation.
- C++-style comments have been removed from xsFortran.h for the benefit of users compiling their own C programs with the models library.
- Plotting fix for case where setplot area is selected and no models are currently loaded.
- Model parsing fix for case of nested parentheses with no '+' operator, ie. A(B(C*D)).