AIPS Patches for 15JAN96 NRAO

This page was updated on $Date: 1996/08/13 16:32:04 $ (GMT)

This File describes the patches to known bugs in 15JAN96.

The following is a list of pointers to the different patches in this document.

  1. PRTIM scaling bug affecting Linux systems primarily 96.02.01
  2. FXVLA special task for VLA UT1 error 30dec95-5jan96 96.02.09
  3. SETJY correct rounding errors for 1990 coeff. 96.02.21
  4. FITLD/FITTP may freeze on some Linux systems 96.02.23
  5. FTPGET can't find nrao.edu on the net 1996.02.25
  6. Tape writing fails for SunOS 5.5 1996.04.16
  7. TPMON Daemons fail to restart sometimes 1996.04.26
  8. SETSP ignores certain hostnames 1996.05.22
  9. ACFIT sometimes crashes unpredictably (NPARM wrong) 1996.08.07

The remainder of this document is comprised of the patch descriptions pointed to by the above references.

Task:
PRTIM
Summary:
The task computed a blanking integer value too close to an integer overflow for Linux systems. Also cleaned up minor bugs affecting the display on all systems.
Files:
15JAN96/APL/PGM/PRTIM.FOR
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file and put it in $APLPGM
  2. Link it in with
    COMLNK $APLPGM/PRTIM
Documentor:
Eric W. Greisen
Date:
1996.02.01
Task:
FXVLA
Summary:
New task required to correct VLA data for a UT1-UTC interpolation error affecting data between 30 Dec 95 19h00 LST and 5 Jan 96 22h00 LST. This error is related to the leap second on 31 Dec 95.
Files:
15JAN96/APL/PGM/NOTST/FXVLA.FOR
15JAN96/HELP/FXVLA.HLP
Fix:
  1. Fetch FXVLA.FOR and put it in $APGNOT
  2. Fetch FXVLA.HLP and put it in $HLPFIL
  3. Link it in with
    COMLNK $APGNOT/FXVLA
Documentor:
Athol Kemball
Date:
1996.02.09
Task:
SETJY
Summary:
Previous implementation of the 1990 VLA flux density coefficients was subject to a small rounding error. Only 3C286 was significantly affected with errors of 0.5%-1.9% from P-band to Q-band respectively. This version of SETJY also includes the new 1995.2 VLA coefficients.
Files:
15JAN96/APL/PGM/NOTST/SETJY.FOR
15JAN96/HELP/SETJY.HLP
Fix:
  1. Fetch SETJY.FOR and put it in $APGNOT
  2. Fetch SETJY.HLP and put it in $HLPFIL
  3. Link it in with
    COMLNK $APGNOT/SETJY
Documentor:
Athol Kemball
Date:
1996.02.21
Tasks:
FITLD, FITTP
Summary:
On some Linux systems (including Red Hat 1.2.13 and Slackware 1.3.45), if the routine $APLSUB/FILL.FOR is compiled with normal optimization, it causes some tasks to freeze up, notably FITLD and FITTP. This has been observed specifically in the latter when writing FITS files to disk. Recompiling FILL with $OPT0 and relinking the task seems to cure this.
Files:
15JAN96/SYSTEM/UNIX/OPTIMIZE.LIS
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file and put it in $SYSUNIX (or edit your existing file and uncomment the entry for FILL)
  2. Re-compile with
    COMRPL $APLSUB/FILL
  3. Re-link FITTP with
    COMLNK $APGNOT/FITTP
  4. Also Re-link any other task that seems to freeze and 'spin its wheels' after starting.
Documentor:
Patrick P. Murphy
Date:
1996.02.23
Tasks:
FTPGET (usually part of INSTEP1)
Summary:
The logic that attempted to search for the ping utility was flawed for most systems except Suns. The result was a missing "/" in the path to ping. This would result in the script telling you NRAO was unreachable on the net.
Files:
15JAN96/SYSTEM/UNIX/INSTALL/FTPGET
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file BEFORE you start INSTEP1, and put it in $INSUNIX.
  2. Start INSTEP1.
Documentor:
Patrick P. Murphy
Date:
1996.02.25
Tasks:
All Tape writing tasks
Summary:
Any tape writing under SunOS 5.5 (Solaris 2.5) fails with either an error writing the final EOF marks or at the beginning of the write operation. This is cured by not opening the tape for non-blocking I/O; the patched ZTPOP2.C routine for Solaris cures the problem.
Files:
15JAN96/APL/DEV/UNIX/BELL/SOL/ZTPOP2.C
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file and put it in $APLSOL.
  2. Re-compile with
    COMRPL $APLSOL/ZTPOP2
  3. Relink all tape applications you might use:
    COMLNK $APGNOT/FITTP $APGNOT/FITLD $APGNOT/UVLOD
    $APGNOT/IMLOD $AIPPGM/AIPS $APLPGM/PRTTP
    $APGNOT/MK3IN $APGNOT/FILLM $APLPGM/AVTP
    $APGNOT/BAKLD $APGNOT/BAKTP $APGNOT/FILLR
    $APGNOT/GSCAT $AIPNOT/TPMON $APLPGM/TCOPY
    $AIPNOT/GR2TEX $AIPNOT/GRITP $AIPNOT/RDFITS
    $APGNOT/MK3TX
Documentor:
Patrick P. Murphy (with a lot of help from Martin Shepherd at Caltech!)
Date:
1996.04.16
Corrected on:
1996.04.17 (AVTP is in APLPGM; also add TCOPY)
Corrected on:
1996.04.26 (Add GR2TEX, GRITP, RDFITS, MK3TX)
Corrected on:
1996.05.03 (GR2TEX is in $AIPNOT, not $APGNOT)
Script:
STARTPMON (starts the TPMON daemons)
Summary:
This script failed to work correctly under some (System V flavour) versions of Unix, notably AIPS architectures SOL, SGI, and HP. The patched version does not rely on the Berkeley "whoami" command but uses the value of the LOGNAME environment variable instead. The problem only becomes apparent when a TPMON daemon needs to be killed and restarted due to a recompile of TPMON itself.
Files:
15JAN96/SYSTEM/UNIX/STARTPMON
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file and put it in $SYSUNIX.
  2. Make sure it is executable with this command: chmod +x $SYSUNIX/STARTPMON
Documentor:
Patrick P. Murphy
Date:
1996.04.26
Task:
SETSP (used to set parameters like SETPAR for many hosts)
Summary:
If you have a hostname that contains the $ARCH string embedded in it (e.g. SOL123 for Solaris; contains "SOL"), SETSP ignores that entry in the HOSTS.LIST file completely. This was a bug in the string parsing of the file. The replacement fixes this problem (and also includes somewhat better support for using existing values when you exercise the CHANGE option).
Files:
15JAN96/AIPS/PGM/SETSP.FOR
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file and put it in $AIPPGM.
  2. Compile and link it with: COMLNK $AIPPGM/SETSP
Documentor:
Patrick P. Murphy
Date:
1996.05.22
Task:
ACFIT
Summary:
The value of NPARM as used in the call to GTPARM in this task is wrong (299, should be 279). This caused unpredictable overwriting of the running program on some systems, notably SunOS 5.
Files:
15JAN96/APL/PGM/NOTST/ACFIT.FOR
Fix:
  1. Fetch the file and put it in $APGNOT.
  2. Compile and link it with: COMLNK $APGNOT/ACFIT
Documentor:
Patrick P. Murphy, with help from Henrietta May and Scott Allendorf.
Date:
1996.08.07, CORRECTED 1996.08.13 (16:31:08 GMT)
Patrick P. Murphy