XMM-Newton Science Analysis System
ftools (ftools-1.2) [xmmsas_20080701_1801-8.0.0]
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Please note the following limitations:
- FTOOLS do not allow string parameters to be assigned an empty
string on the command line. For example, the following is not
allowed.
fxxx foo='' bar=42
is parsed as:
fxxx foo='bar=42'
Consequently empty string parameters should be avoided in the
parameter dialogs. The customised parameter files in this package
use a single space " " or a question mark "?" to avoid this problem.
You should be aware that if this character is deleted, the FTOOL can
incorrectly parse the resulting command line.
- The user can only respond to prompts from a task by typing in the
terminal window from which the SAS GUI was started (provided that
the GUI was not placed in the background). However, prompting
should not normally occur, because the GUI provides all task
parameters when it launches an FTOOL. A tool may sometimes prompt
for input as a result of incorrectly parsing an empty string argument.
Note also that the SAS GUI line-buffers output from a task;
consequently prompts are not displayed until after the response
has been typed!
- The GUI enforces the types of parameters. For exmaple, it
is not possible to enter a string for a numeric parameter.
Similarly, `INDEF' cannot be used to denote an undefined
value. Numerical parameters requiring `INDEF' should be treated
as string paramters by the GUI.
- The GUI does not use the PFILES environment variable to locate
FTOOLS parameter files. Some FTOOLS set parameters in the
PFILES directory. When run from the GUI, an FTOOL uses its own
parameter file to determine the type of each parameter, but ignores
the default values in its parameter files, because the GUI specifies
all paraeters on the command line.
XMM-Newton SOC/SSC -- 2008-07-02