In this web page I provide a script I started developing back in 1992 which starts an IRAF session in a way a bit more user friendly than the usual cl command. Using this script to start IRAF will make the life of any IRAF user as well as the local system manager much simpler.

I hope that once you've read this page you'll be convinced that it is indeed a good idea to use xiraf and that my efforts to create the script and this web page did not go in vain. If you still have any doubts or questions feel free to contact me.

I would not have been able to do this without the guidance and support over all these years of Mike Fitzpatrick (NOAO), my IRAF mentor...

Dr. Charm

• On August 3, 2004 xiraf was upgraded to version 3.12 to include a fix/suggestion by Wagner Corradi (UFMG, Brazil) related to the location of the Xresources of XGterm as well as to add a clarification about enviroment variable definitions under the BASH shell. The support for SAOtng, was also dropped since the package has been replaced for several years now by DS9.
• On October 8 2001 xiraf was upgraded to version 3.11 to include a fix/suggestion by Terry Hancock (IPAC) so that "xgterm" is selected by default when the login.cl file is being recreated by the "mkiraf" script.
• On July 10 2000 xiraf was upgraded to version 3.1 trying asymptotically to reach the value of pi. I've only added some extra explanations and comments to it but no changes were done to the actual code.
• On April 15 2000 xiraf was upgraded to version 3.0 to include the option of using DS9 as an image display. This is a major upgrade...
• On November 5th 1998, after implementing a suggestion of Vivi Fragopoulou (who is BTW a real computer scientist) the xiraf script was upgraded to version 2.3. A couple of bugs reported by Jonathan Adams (NASA, Ames) were also corrected. This is a major upgrade...

Then the bad news: Once you have it in your system and if you want to serve many users problems arise.

More specifically:

For the System Manager

• The system manager has to create and maintain the common fifo files (/dev/imt1o and /dev/imt1i) on each machine of the local cluster of workstations he/she wants to have IRAF running.
• The system manager has to create an IRAF login.cl file for every user since many do not quite understand what the command mkiraf does.

For the Novice User

• Open an xgterm instead of the usual Unix xterm after having read its proper Xresources.
• Working on the xgterm the user has to go to the directory where his/her IRAF login.cl is located.
• The user has to start the IRAF cl command in that directory.
• Finally, the user has to choose the image display client (SAOimage, XImtool, or DS9) he/she prefers and start it with the proper options.
  This can be done using the task xray.xplot.ximtool. Another option is to start the image client externally from another window..

• the xgterm excutable is not installed in the system.
• the user does not start IRAF in the directory of his/her login.cl file and as a result does not find all installed packages.
• the user encounters problems trying to run IRAF on a machine which access the IRAF binaries but for some reasons does not have the public fifo files installed.
• the public fifo files exist but another user is running SAOimage making it impossible to run a second SAOimage window on the workstation.
• the user has exited the IRAF environment ("cl>" prompt) but left an SAOimage session running which prevents him/her to view his/her images when he/she restarts IRAF and an new SAOimage
• ... your own sad story ...

When a user executes the script xiraf for the first time, xiraf checks whether the user has already been using IRAF by looking for a login.cl file. Then it creates a set of personal fifo files, and if the user does not have a login.cl file it runs mkiraf, to create it. Subsequently, the script opens an XGterm with the selected image display client and starts IRAF inside this new XGterm. When a user wishes to finish his/her IRAF session and issues the command cl>logout, the image display client, the IRAF session, and the XGterm close keeping everything nice and tidy...

The major advantage of the script is that it also allows the user to select in a transparent way the program he/she wants to use to display his/her IRAF images. As far as I know there are four in the market. First it's the old but reliable SAOimage. We also have XImtool the X-window resurrection of the old Sun Imtool which comes as part of the X11IRAF package. Finally we have DS9 ( SAOimage Deep Space 9) which is the next version of SAOtng and in a manner analogous to the popular TV series it's an even more powerful program. The web sites from where one can download the latest versions of all four programs are listed at the end of this page.

The syntax of the script is :

xiraf -h	:Show command options
xiraf -help	:Show command options
xiraf	:Start IRAF in an XGterm using the default image display
xiraf -ximtool	:Start IRAF in an XGterm using XImtool for display
xiraf -saoimage	:Start IRAF in an XGterm using SAOimage for display
xiraf -ds9	:Start IRAF in an XGterm using DS9 for display
xiraf -rebuild	:Rerun mkiraf rebuilding the login.cl file of the user. This should be used ONLY in the case of major IRAF version upgrades.

It's worth stressing that xiraf does not interfere with the existing IRAF distribution. It is just simplifying the intermediate steps. Users who don't like it do not have to use it even if it has been placed into the system. They can run IRAF in the usual old fashioned way.

Technical Note: Apart from setting some options to automate things the xiraf script forces the user to start his/her IRAF session with private fifo files. This is done internally in the xgterm sheel using the environment variable IMTDEV. In principle private fifos are only necessary if one has multiple users running SAOimage on the same workstation. XImtool and DS9 do not have this problem. However, my experience has shown that the public fifos (/dev/imt1o and /dev/imt1i) are not by default present in all systems. So using personal fifo files is a more robust approach.

Set-up Requirements

The script can be used either by a single user who just wishes to simplify his/her IRAF start-up process (by placing it somewhere in his/her directory) or it can be installed in a global way for all IRAF users.

In the second case the System manager has to get the script xiraf provided at the end of this page and place it in the standard executable Unix PATH of the users. A series of site-dependent environment variables must be defined in the xiraf script.

Minimum system requirements are: IRAF version 2.10 or later, as well as the X11IRAF software package which includes the xgterm and ximtool executables. The IRAF commands cl and mkiraf should be in the PATH of each potential IRAF user. The location of all the other executables and programs needed is defined within the script.

Any potential IRAF user will simply have to type xiraf to start IRAF for the first time. The script will prompt the user to define his/her personal IRAF directory via an environment variable called USERIRAF and it will take care of all the rest...

The script has been tested under all IRAF versions later than 2.10.4, running in clusters of DEC-Alphas (OSF/1 vers. 3.2, and Digital Unix ver. 4.0), DEC-Ultrix, Suns (Solaris versions 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7) as well as on Red Hat Linux. It has been used in sites which use either NFS (=Network File System) or AFS(=Andrew File System) or mixed filesystems. The image display packages currently supported are:

The script follows:

• xiraf (25.8 Kbytes) - all Unix platforms (tested on Solaris, HPUX, DEC)
• xiraf (26.5 Kbytes) - Linux specific (check comments on Debian)
• Macintoch users check here

The script has plenty of comments so it's rather trivial to understand its function. If you've managed to get IRAF running and you already have X11IRAF you'll be able to customize the script in your system in 10min, or your money back ....

If you find this script useful please send an e-mail and let me know about it. This way your institution will be proudly displayed in the list found at the end of this web page. I would appreciate even more if you could send me an e-mail with comments or bugs you've noticed.

I would like to acknowledge once more the help of Mike who checked the script in its early form.

Vassilis Charmandaris
April 15th 2000
Ithaca, NY, USA

Sites using xiraf include:

• Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Iowa State University, IA, USA (the cradle of xiraf)
• Service d'Astrophysique, CEA-Saclay, France
• Observatoire de Paris, France
• Joint Astronomy Center, Hilo, HI, USA
• Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiale, Marseille, France
• Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), NASA Ames, CA, USA
• Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Univ. of California Riverside, CA, USA
• IFA, Univ. of Aarhus, Denmark
• Academia Sinica, Insitute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taipei, Taiwan
• MEGACAM/TERAPIX consortium, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France
• Onsala Space Observatory, Sweden
• IRS Science Center, Astronomy Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA [1 Sep 1999]
• Astronomy Group, The Open University, UK [24 Jul 2000]
• Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto, Canada
• European Southern Observatory, Santiago, Chile [15 Sep 2000]
• Groupe d'Astrophysique, Université de Monrtéal, Canada
• Vatican Observatory, Tucson, AZ, USA [23 Jun 2000]
• Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Univ. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
• Astronomical Observatory of Padova, Padova, Italy [3 Jun 2001]
• Hewitt Undergraduate Laboratory, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY [1 Sep 2001]
• Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Caltech, Pasadena, CA [8 Oct 2001]
• Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, Santander, Spain [31 Oct 2001]
• Instituto de Astronomía UNAM - Morelia, México
• Dipartimento di Fisica, Univ. di Roma "La Sapienza", Rome, Italy
• Astronomy Department, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA [31 Oct 2002]
• Math/Science Division, Babson College, Wellesley, MA [31 Jan 2003]
• Laboratoire d'AstrOphysique de Grenoble, Grenoble, France [13 Feb 2003]
• Physics Department, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK [10 Mar 2003]
• NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre, Greenbelt, MD [17 Jul 2003]
• Steward Observatory, Univeristy of Arizona, Tucson, AZ [1 Oct 2003]
• The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, Mauna Kea, Hawaii [6 Oct 2003]
• Astrophysics Group, Univ. Federal de Minas Gerais, Pampulha - Belo Horizonte, Brazil [16 Jul 2004]
• Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL [21 Sep 2004]
• Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Boston, MA [27 Oct 2004]
• University College London, London, UK [28 Nov 2005]
• University of Vienna, Astronomy Department, Vienna, Austria [7 Mar 2006]
• University of Toronto, Astronomy Department, Toronto, CA [4 Jul 2006]