$Id$

NeSDaC

parameter interface

NAME

pcl, iraf like parameterfile.

DESCRIPTION

A stageII program, when invoked without any arguments, will retrieve its runtime parameters from a so called parameter file (IRAF-style).
You must defines an environment variable PFILES, pointing to a directory containing the parameterfile(s).
A stageII program can create its own parameter file when run with only one parameter "-q".
if PFILES is defined, the parameter file is created in this directory.

Currently, a home(sron) brewn set of pcl routines is in the distribution (.../src/pcl). These routines will perform the task of reading the parameterfile, however, the user is never prompted for the value of a missing parameter.
So in order to use this, you must supply a fully filled in version of the parameterfile, and update the data for another run. This can be done in an editor, or using the set of parameterfile utilities (plist, pset, pget etc.) in your ftools bin directory.

At sron, the parameter files are produced by an user-interface, also responsible for the retrieval and naming of datafiles from a tape-archive.

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