CHANGES SINCE SAS20

This appendix records the changes that were made between SAS20 and SAS21, as many users, for quite legitimate reasons, do not update every time a new version is released. To keep all of this information from disrupting the flow of the cookbook, it has been sequestered here.

This version of ESAS is significantly different from previous versions of ESAS. The original ESAS relied very heavily on scripts, in part to manage the large number of files required to produce the background images and spectra. The goal was to allow the scripts to do everything that did not require direct human intervention. As a result, ESAS required a very rigid directory/file name structure. As part of an effort to implement ESAS more closely into SAS, the ESAS routines have been modified 1.) to be less dependent upon the rigid directory/file name structure, 2.) to make the routines more modular, 3.) reduce the number of files produced, and 4.) clean up a number of loose ends, unclear usage, and the like. As a result, the bulk of the scripting has been moved out of ESAS. This is unlikely to be a traumatic change; users have become more accustomed to scripting in a variety of languages.