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Last modified: 24 October 2023

URL: https://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/ciao/bugs/parameter.html

Bugs: parameter


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Caveats


Caveats

The closing ")" is stolen from the first parameter when positionally defining parameters with pset.

In general this will occur when there's an "=" in the parameter value. For example:

unix% pset dmmakereg "region(regions/chips.reg[ccd_id=3])"
unix% plist dmmakereg

Parameters for /home/username/cxcds_param4/dmmakereg.par

        region = region(regions/chips.reg[ccd_id=3] Input region string
       outfile = ) -> INDEF       Output virtual filename
       (append = no)              Create or Append
       (kernel = fits)            Output file format type
      (wcsfile = none)            File with coordinate mapping
      (verbose = 0)               Debug Level(0-5)
      (clobber = no)              Clobber existing file (in create mode)
         (mode = ql)              

The close parenthesis has been added to the outfile field.

Workaround:

Supply the parameter name in the pset call:

unix% pset dmmakereg region="region(regions/chips.reg[ccd_id=3])"

Double quotes are converted into single quotes when set with the parameter interface

For example:

unix% pset dmextract infile='evt2.fits[bin sky=ellipse(100d,100d,5",2",90)]'

unix% pget dmextract infile 
evt2.fits[bin sky=ellipse(100d,100d,5',2',90)]

Workarounds:

  1. Define the region in a file:

    unix% pset dmextract infile='evt2.fits[bin sky=region(regionfile.txt)]'
    
  2. Define a stack with the text of the infile parameter:

    unix% pset dmextract infile=@infile.txt
    

Prompting order may not match parameter file  (16 Jun 2008)

Some of the CIAO tools prompts for parameters in a different order than they are listed in the parameter file. When running from the command line or in a script, supply the parameter names to ensure that the values are set correctly. The Supplying parameters on the command line section of the Using Parameter Files thread has an example.

Unsigned long integers (32bits) are not supported

The CXC parameter interface and related tools (pget, dmkeypar, etc) do not support an unsigned long datatype commonly used for engineering values. The values are stored as signed values so values greater than 2^31 are shown as negative values.