iraf.net

Fitz,I'd like help polish IRAF by spell checking the help files. Would you be interested in such an offer? My plan would be to use [b:0c4263342b]aspell[/b:0c4263342b] on the files. It's actually quite quick and easy and takes only a minute or so per file. I already did this on the "proto" package and it took about 20 or 30 minutes. I would [b:0c4263342b]tar[/b:0c4263342b] up the fixed files on a package-by-package basis and then e-mail them to you (there doesn't seem to be a way for me to attach a file here in the forums). Aspell leaves ".bak" extensions on the old files. I wrote a little script using [b:0c4263342b]diff[/b:0c4263342b] that would show you all the changes line-by-line if you wanted to check the updates. All you'd have to do is delete the ".bak" files and copy the new files to your master version of IRAF.My plan would be to make minimal changes fixing only obvious spelling mistakes. I would use American spelling by default unless the task is for users who would likely use British spelling. If I spot a grammar mistake I would fix it but grammar isn't a main goal, only spelling. Jason

Hi Jason,The offer is much-appreciated and would certainly help. A tarball of changed files is probably simplest and could be sent in whatever chunks you find convenient to fitz@iraf.net.Something else that needs checking but lacks an automated tool is a check for missing format directives in the help file itself. For example, the LROFF source for listing parameters is a block of text beginning with ".ls" and ending w/ ".le". Occassionally the .le is missing and the formatting of the rest of the help page gets confused (esp. when shown as HTML). Similar problems exist for .nf/.fi tags around non-formatted text. I usually just fix these manually as I come across them but if you could think of a way to autmate this ......Thanks again,
-Mike

Hi, Mike. I'm basically done with batch 2 but I have a question. Almost all the help files have a maximum of 80 characters per line. In batch 1, I kept that true. But I was wondering if there's any reason for enforcing that limit still?Jason

It's not a requirement, just the usual width of a terminal window. Do what's easiest.-Mike