XMM-Newton Science Analysis System


ftools (ftools-1.2) [xmmsas_20160201_1833-15.0.0]

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Limitations

Please note the following limitations:

• FTOOLS do not allow string parameters to be assigned an empty string on the command line. For example, the following is not allowed.

     fxxx foo='' bar=42
  

  is parsed as:

     fxxx foo='bar=42'
  

  Consequently empty string parameters should be avoided in the parameter dialogs. The customised parameter files in this package use a single space " " or a question mark "?" to avoid this problem. You should be aware that if this character is deleted, the FTOOL can incorrectly parse the resulting command line.

• The user can only respond to prompts from a task by typing in the terminal window from which the SAS GUI was started (provided that the GUI was not placed in the background). However, prompting should not normally occur, because the GUI provides all task parameters when it launches an FTOOL. A tool may sometimes prompt for input as a result of incorrectly parsing an empty string argument. Note also that the SAS GUI line-buffers output from a task; consequently prompts are not displayed until after the response has been typed!

• The GUI enforces the types of parameters. For exmaple, it is not possible to enter a string for a numeric parameter. Similarly, `INDEF' cannot be used to denote an undefined value. Numerical parameters requiring `INDEF' should be treated as string paramters by the GUI.

• The GUI does not use the PFILES environment variable to locate FTOOLS parameter files. Some FTOOLS set parameters in the PFILES directory. When run from the GUI, an FTOOL uses its own parameter file to determine the type of each parameter, but ignores the default values in its parameter files, because the GUI specifies all paraeters on the command line.