Starting Sherpa

Starting Sherpa for the First Time

When Sherpa is started from within the CIAO environment, the user is informed of the CIAO version number, Sherpa package number, and date at which CIAO was installed on the user's system:

unix% ciao
CIAO 4.3 Thursday, December 2, 2010
  bindir      : /soft/ciao/bin

unix% sherpa

-----------------------------------------------------
Welcome to Sherpa: CXC's Modeling and Fitting Package
-----------------------------------------------------
CIAO 4.3 Sherpa version 1 Thursday, December 2, 2010

The Sherpa package number is indicated by "version 1" in the above message. This means this is the first version of Sherpa released with CIAO 4.3 - i.e., the major release version. If an intermediate patch of Sherpa is later released for CIAO 4.3, the package number will be incremented for that patch release, and the above text would change to "version 2".

The Sherpa script loads the Sherpa (Python) module, as well as the Crates module, which handles file input and output, and the ChIPS module, which provides the plotting capabilities.

Default Sherpa settings are defined in the $HOME/.sherpa.rc file, which is processed when Sherpa is started; this file can be modified as described in the section Customizing the Sherpa Environment.

The Sherpa and ChIPS applications use the $HOME/.ipython-ciao/ directory to store configuration information. The first time Sherpa or ChIPS is started you will see a message asking whether you want to update your ipythonrc-sherpa or ipythonrc-chips file.

unix% ciao
unix% sherpa

 ATTENTION: Out of date IPython profile for Sherpa found in:
           /home/username/.ipython-ciao

           Local version (40201) vs latest (40301).
           Update to latest? [Y/N] :

Unless you have manually changed your $HOME/.ipython-ciao/ipythonrc-sherpa(or -chips) file, it is safe to answer "Y" here. The outdated file is renamed with a timestamp to preserve it. The new profile is installed read-only. If you would like to modify how Sherpa uses IPython functions, or call "execfile" to load Python scripts when Sherpa starts, the customization file ~/.ipython-ciao/ipythonrc-sherpa-user should be used. If you would like IPython profiles to be somewhere other than ~/.ipython-ciao, you can set IPYTHONDIR to point to the desired directory.

Sherpa is run in the Python scripting language. As of the release of Sherpa version 2 in CIAO 4.2, the Sherpa S-Lang interface is no longer supported; there is no longer any means of importing Sherpa as a S-Lang module. Therefore, the "-l" command-line option has been removed, and Sherpa no longer reads the environment variables CIAO_SCRIPT_LANG or SHERPA_SCRIPT_LANG. The following are the remaining command-line options which may be specified when Sherpa is started:

unix% sherpa -h
-- sherpa
  usage: sherpa [-x] [-n] [-b] [-rcfile file] [norcfile] <file>
     -x       launch sherpa shell in separate display terminal
     -n       do not print banner
     -b       batch mode
     -rcfile  load a user specifiable preference file
     -norcfile do not load any user specifiable preference file (overrides -rcfile)
     <file> appropriate python command file to execute

See the section Command-line Options for Sherpa for more details on these Sherpa startup options.

Getting Help

There are several ways to access the Sherpa help files.

Finding a Command

Here are some tips on how to find the name of a command while working in Sherpa.

sherpa-6> *arf* ?
get_arf
get_arf_plot
get_bkg_arf
is_arf
load_arf
load_bkg_arf
load_multi_arfs
plot_arf
read_arf
set_arf
unpack_arf
write_arf

sherpa-7> write_
write_arf    write_file   write_pha    write_rmf

Running CIAO and unix commands from the Sherpa Prompt

Any line beginning with "!" is passed from Sherpa to the shell. This allows you to run CIAO and shell commands from the Sherpa prompt.

For example:

sherpa-8> !pwd
/data/ciao_demo/threads/acis-s/1838/primary

sherpa-9> !ls
acisf01838_000N001_bpix1.fits  acisf01838N001_src2.fits
acisf01838N001_evt2.fits       pcadf084244404N001_asol1.fits

sherpa-10> !dmkeypar acisf01838N001_evt2.fits OBJECT echo+
G21.5-0.9

sherpa-11> !dmcopy "acisf01838N001_evt2.fits[energy=300:10000]" 1838_energy.fits

Exiting Sherpa

Type "quit" or use <CTRL>-D to exit Sherpa.

Command-line options for Sherpa

The Sherpa command-line options can be listed with the -h flag:

unix% sherpa -h
-- sherpa
  usage: sherpa [-x] [-n] [-b] [-rcfile file] [norcfile] <file>
     -x       launch sherpa shell in separate display terminal
     -n       do not print banner
     -b       batch mode
     -rcfile  load a user specifiable preference file
     -norcfile do not load any user specifiable preference file (overrides -rcfile)
     <file> appropriate python command file to execute

-x

This will create a new Xterm and start Sherpa in it.

-n

This switch causes Sherpa to start without a banner:

unix% sherpa -n
sherpa-1>

-b

This flag does not work correctly in CIAO 4.2.

-rcfile

This option allows the user to specify a specific .sherpa.rc file to use; refer to "ahelp sherparc" for details.

-norcfile

This option specifies that a .sherpa.rc file should not be loaded; overrides "-rcfile" if both are set.

<file>

The contents of the file are executed before the user is prompted for further commands. The command must be in the same language as used at the interactive prompt. So, if simple.py contained

unix% cat simple.py
load_pha("src.pi")
plot_data()
print "Loaded and plotted data"

then we will load and plot the data if Sherpa is started by saying:

unix% sherpa python simple.py
-----------------------------------------------------
Welcome to Sherpa: CXC's Modeling and Fitting Package
-----------------------------------------------------
CIAO 4.3 Sherpa version 1 Thursday, December 2, 2010


read ARF file src.arf
read RMF file src.rmf
read background file bgnd.pi
Loaded and plotted data
sherpa-2> print info()
Window [win1]
  Frame [frm1]
    Plot [plot1]   (0.15,0.15)  .. (0.90,0.90)
      Border bottom [bx1]  top [bx2]  left [by1]  right [by2]
      X Axis [ax1]
      Y Axis [ay1]
      Curve [crv1]

sherpa-3>

Using Sherpa from Python

The Sherpa, ChIPS, and Crates modules can be loaded into Python by typing:

from sherpa.astro.ui import *
from pychips import *
from pychips.hlui import *
from pycrates import *

Customizing the Sherpa Environment

When Sherpa is started, it processes the $HOME/.sherpa.rc resource file, which defines the default behavior for Sherpa commands. You can modify the settings in this file in any text editor to suit your preferences; see the .sherpa.rc ahelp file for detailed descriptions of the available settings.

For example, if you have installed the plotting package PyLab and would like Sherpa to plot with this program instead of the default CIAO plotting package (ChIPS), you would change the entry for the 'plot_pkg' option in the Sherpa resource file from 'chips' to 'pylab':

unix% grep plot_pkg ~/.sherpa.rc
plot_pkg   : pylab

If the plotting package is ChIPS, any preferences set in the $HOME/.chips.rc resource file will be available during plotting. There is an option to override the .chips.rc settings in .sherpa.rc; refer to the "[chips]" section of the .sherpa.rc ahelp file for details.