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File lists

NAME

filename-list - list

SYNOPSIS

Several StageII programs can accept a namelist-parameter. A
namelist-parameter is a list of strings, delimited by one or more ','
(commas) or white-space (as defined by the isspace function, unix:ctype
(man(3C))), characters.

Each of these strings must be either the name of a FITS file (that can be
used by the program), or the name of a file containing another
namelist-parameter.

The current implementation is not at all flawless, we are bound to run into
trouble sometime. Any file that

   * does not begin with the string : "SIMPLE = ", ie. is NOT a FITS file
   * and is shorter than 8 Kbyte

is assumed to be a valid namelist-parameter file. If this assumption is
wrong, unpredictable things will happen. The file is openend, the content
interpreted as a list of filenames and the program eventually will try to
access these files. If one is lucky, this will fail on errors in the
category "cannot open" immediately, occasionally a valid filename is used
and errors occur further along the line of processing. (see the source file
.../src/evt/evt_open.c:idrctnlist).

This potentially dangerous implementation must be resolved soon, maybe by
defining a special FITS file type, ie. a namelist-parameter FITS file.



Mark Savenije
Sat Jan 18 15:04:49 MET 1997