iraf.net

Dear Sir/Madam, recently I installed IRAF (x64 v2.16.1) on Linux (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS x64) and DS9 (v7.2 x64). However, I encounter problems running "imexam" function. All the parameters, such as "a", "s","l"..., I type don't response at all except "q". I tried DS9 v4.12 as well, but the same result also happened. None key works except "q". Could anyone please help me to fix the problem? Thanks a lot.

DS9 v7.2 is known to be broken for iraf cursor reads, your only solution is to use an earlier (or more recent beta) version.

I have already tried DS9 v4.12, but it failed to respond either. Which version do you recommend, please? Thank you very much.

Versions 7.1 and earlier or v7.3 and later have been known to work.

Note that with IMEXAM some commands apply to graphics plots and some to image displays, you use the 'g' and 'i' keys to switch between the two modes. It may also be that you have your mouse focus set such that you need to click on the DS9 window to have it get the input focus, otherwise the 'q' command is still being interpreted by the xterm/xgterm window.

Thanks for your advice. I have tried other versions of DS9, but the probelm still exists. I also reinstalled IRAF. However, the same problem still occurs. I noticed that I have to click the DS9 window to get the input focus, but after clicking, IRAF makes no respond to whichever key I press, except "q".

You can test independently whether the image cursor read works with the RIMCURSOR command, e.g.

cl\$this->_split2($m[0]) =rimcursor

will read a single command. If this works then use the 'g' and 'i' keystrokes to switch between graphics and image cursor modes. It does sound like you have click-to-focus set and will need to click respectively on the terminal and DS9 windows when switching between windows. If an image is displayed be sure the cursor coordinates look reasonable, if everything comes back as (0,0) then it still sounds to me like a v7.2 problem.

I tried the command "rimcursor" on DS9 v5.2 (also v4.12 & v7.1) upon your instruction. When I pressed "q", the readout is "0. 0. 100 q". But no readout if I press any other keys. Is it possible that the 64-bit system caused this problem? Because I have used IRAF v2.15 + DS9 v5.2 without problems at all on a 32-bit Linux system.

If this were a 64-bit problem we'd have heard about it from other users by now.

On the assumption that people posting problems here don't just make stuff up, I tried this myself using various DS9 versions on a v2.16.1 OSX/Mavericks system and indeed all I saw was the 'q' keystroke. However, using XImtool as the display server showed all the keystrokes as expected. On the IRAF side, there is nothing special about 'q' as a keystroke, however there is some processing in the DS9 GUI to process keystrokes above where this is processed in the display protocol. Through experimentation, I was able to find that this is a problem using the default unix socket interface, using the inet sockets for display/cursor reading worked just fine. (I didn't check whether this also fixes the DS9 v7.2 problem).

So, the workaround is to add the following definition to your .cshrc to for IRAF to use the inet sockets:

setenv IMTDEV inet:5137

or for Bourne shells add to your .bashrc/.profile the command

export IMTDEV=inet:5137

or else issue either appropriate command before logging into the CL.

Since this affects only DS9 you might also contact the developers at SAO (saord@cfa.harvard.edu) about this.

Thank you very much for all your help!

I tried several times according to your advice but failed, so I re-installed my Ubuntu and IRAF v2.16 + DS9 v5.2. They are working very well now.

Thank you again!