HEAsoft v6.13 - Known Issues

If you are using HEASOFT v6.12 and don't want to upgrade to v6.13 just yet, see the HEASOFT 6.12 Issues List.

Please visit the HEASOFT Supported Platforms page for current information about supported operating systems and compilers.

Several packages track issues separately from this page:

• Swift
• CALDB
• fv
• XSPEC
• XRONOS
• XIMAGE

The following is a list of known issues in v6.13 of HEAsoft not covered by the above pages.

• ftstat:
  
  The HEATools task ftstat incorrectly computes statistics for (fixed-length) vector columns. A fix to the source code is available here. To update your source code distribution:

    1) Initialize your environment to use HEASoft.
  
    2) The patch file contains
  
       heasoft-6.13/heatools/ftstat/ftstat.c
       heasoft-6.13/heatools/ftstat/ftstat.h
       heasoft-6.13/heatools/ftstat/ftstat.html
  
       so unpack it above your existing heasoft-6.13 directory
       (i.e. unpack in the directory containing heasoft-6.13).
  
    3) cd heasoft-6.13/heatools/ftstat/
  
    4) hmake all install
  

  Note that in the case of vector columns, ftstat computes statistics for the total number of elements, in all of the rows of each column. For alternate vector column handling, please use the task fstatistic, which computes statistics on the sum of the vector elements in each row of the table (i.e. the reported mean value is that of all the individual sums in each row).



• flx2xsp:
  
  The flx2xsp task fails to work with tab-delimited columns or single-row input. A fix to the source code is available here. To update your source code distribution:

    1) Initialize your environment to use HEASoft.
  
    2) The patch file contains
  
       heasoft-6.13/heagen/flx2xsp.cxx
       heasoft-6.13/heacore/heasp/pha.cxx
       heasoft-6.13/heacore/heasp/phaII.cxx
       heasoft-6.13/heacore/heasp/rmf.cxx
  
       so unpack it above your existing heasoft-6.13 directory
       (i.e. unpack in the directory containing heasoft-6.13).
  
    3) cd heasoft-6.13/heacore/heasp/
  
    4) hmake all install
  
    5) cd ../../heagen/flx2xsp/
  
    6) hmake all install
  

  The HEASoft source code downloads have been patched with this fix as of 01 March 2013 ~17:05pm EST, so you do not need to apply the patch if you acquired the HEASoft source code distribution after this time.




• pquery2:
  
  An error in the pquery2 task allows it to change hidden keywords, i.e. having the same behavior as pquery. A fix to the source code is available here. To update your source code distribution:

    1) Initialize your environment to use HEASoft.
  
    2) Copy the new pquery2.c from the link above into
  
           heasoft-6.13/heacore/ape/src/pquery2/
  
    3) cd heasoft-6.13/heacore/ape/src/pquery2/
  
    4) hmake all
  
    5) hmake install
  

  The HEASoft source code downloads have been patched with this fix as of 01 March 2013 ~17:05pm EST, so you do not need to apply the patch if you acquired the HEASoft source code distribution after this time.




• ximage:
  
  A rounding error in the HEASoft copy of the AST library (v5.1-0; out-of-date) can generate incorrect output values, e.g. in CRVAL keywords: some numbers with a string of 9s are rounded too high, i.e. 9.999 becomes 100. A fix to the source code is available here. To update your source code distribution:

    1) Initialize your environment to use HEASoft.
  
    2) Copy the new fitschan.c from the link above into
  
           heasoft-6.13/heacore/ast/
  
    3) cd heasoft-6.13/heacore/BUILD_DIR/
  
    4) hmake all-ast
  
    5) hmake install-ast
  
  Mac OS X users will also need to relink ximage with the (static) AST library:
  
    6) cd heasoft-6.13/ftools/image/ximage/src/
  
    7) rm ximage
  
    8) hmake
  
    9) hmake install
  

  The HEASoft source code downloads have been patched with this fix as of 01 March 2013 ~17:05pm EST, so you do not need to apply the patch if you acquired the HEASoft source code distribution after this time.




• Perl scripts with newer Perl:
  
  Many of the older Perl scripts in HEASoft (e.g. fhelp) require the getopt.pl or getopts.pl libraries which are no longer available in the newest Perl distributions, e.g. Perl 5.16.2 which ships with Fedora 18. This can result in the error "Can't locate getopt.pl in @INC..." when trying to run a script. To get around this, users may either download and install the Perl4::CoreLibs module from CPAN which includes getopt.pl, or download and run (in $HEADAS/../ftools/<architecture>/bin) a script which repairs our older Perl scripts to use Getopt::Std instead.



• uvotgrplot:
  
  This Swift/UVOT task may fail with a Fortran runtime error while generating a postscript plot when compiled using gfortran 4.6.2 (fink) on Mac OS X. At present we suspect a compiler bug and recommend using an alternate compiler from the options on our support page.



• xspec / PLT - wenv, whead, wdata:
  
  Some GNU Fortran compilers (gfortran 4.4.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x) appear to have internal issues which prevent the PLT commands wenv, whead and wdata from working unless an output file is specified; i.e. attempts at producing terminal output may fail with "Fortran runtime error: Invalid argument". To get around this, provide an output file name when using these commands, for example:

       wenv myFile1.qdp
       whead myFile2.qdp
       wdata myFile3.qdp
  

• xselect:
  
  The "save all" option issues the query "File already exists, overwrite it?" before prompting for a filename. We continue to work toward a solution, but in the meantime users should answer the queries in reverse order.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby