mslist (Measurement summary and data inspection utility)

The mslist utility is a simple, command-line driven measurement set inspection tool. It uses casacore tasks MSSummary and MSLister.

See documentation on casacore tasks for more information.

Running the program

It can be run with the following command

$ mslist.sh [options] MS_filename

The mslist program is not parallel/distributed, it runs in a single process.

Casacore tasks MSSummary and MSLister write to stderr, so to redirect output to a pipe or a file, first redirect stderr to stdout. For example, in bash:

$ mslist.sh [options] MS_filename > MS_summary.txt 2>&1

Configuration Parameters

mslist does not accept a configuration parameter file, but does accept a number of command-line options.

Parameter	Description
--brief	Brief listing (default, with verbose). Calls MSSummary function listMain.
--full	More extensive listing; where, what and how.
--what	What what observed? (fields, times, etc.) See MSSummary function listWhat.
--how	How was it observed? (antennas, frequencies, etc.) See MSSummary function listHow.
--tables	List tables in the measurement set. See MSSummary function listTables.
--data	Display correlation data. See MSLister documentation.
--verbose	Verbose output.

Additional parameters used with the --data option (MSLister parameters)

See MSLister documentation.

Note: There appears to be an error with --uvrange.

Parameter	Default	Example	Description
--datacolumn=str	data	corrected	Choose the data column to display.
--field=str			Restrict fields.
--spw=str	All	‘0:5~10’	Restrict spectral windows.
--antenna=str	All	‘3&&4;1’	Restrict antennas.
--timerange=str	All	‘<2014/09/14/10:48:50.0’	Restrict the time range.
--correlation=str	All	XX	Restrict polarisations.
--scan=str	All	8	Restrict scans.
--uvrange=str	All	‘0.1~1klambda’	Restrict uv range. Seems to compare against u only. Use with care!
--pagerows=int	50		Set the number of lines to print per page.
--listfile=str	stdout		Set an output file.

Example

Example 1:

$ mslist.sh --verbose --full 1641/2015-04-14_071714_ch00000-00511.ms

Example 2:

$ mslist.sh --data --antenna='3&&4' --spw='0:5~10' --correlation='XX,YY' 1641/2015-04-14_071714_ch00000-00511.ms