                  MSCRED: CCD MOSAIC REDUCTION PACKAGE
              Release Notes and Installation Instructions

SUMMARY

The MSCRED external package is used to reduce CCD mosaic data  in  which
the data is in the mosaic MEF data format.



RELEASE INFORMATION

The  following  summary  only  highlights the major changes.  There will
also be minor changes and bug fixes.

V5.04: August 17, 2011
Relinked against IRAF 2.15.1a to pick up core library changes.

V5.04: February 18, 2011
Fixed a bug with a missing argument to a  procedure which caused a crash
with combine in the macintel architecture.

V5.03: February 3, 2011
Fixed 64-bit bug in xtalkcor.

V5.02: January 20, 2011
Fixed bug in ccdproc.

V5.01: January 10, 2011
Fixed bug in mscdisplay.

V5.0: December 16, 2010



INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Installation of this external package consists of obtaining  the  files,
unpacking  them, optionally compiling the executables if not included in
the distribution, and defining the  environment  to  load  and  run  the
package.   Note  that  starting  with  IRAF V2.15 there are installation
utilities  which  automate  this   process.    So   these   installation 
instructions  here  are  for  primarily  for earlier versions of IRAF or
those wishing to use the older method.

The package may be installed for a site or as a  personal  installation.
If  you need help with these installation instructions post a request at
the iraf.net website.

The first step is determining your host IRAF architecture.  If  you  are
not  sure  but have a running IRAF installation then, after starting the
command language, type

    cl> show arch
    .redhat

This is the value you need to know without the  leading  '.';  i.e.  the
IRAF architecture is "redhat" in the example.

The distributions files may be found in various places.  If you got this
document from an  ftp  directory  the  files  should  also  be  in  that
directory  with names of the form "mscred-<arch>.tar.gz.  These are gzip
compressed tar files.  The  files  for  each  architecture  include  the
binaries except for "src" which is only the source.

Unlike  earlier  distributions  (prior  to  Dec  2010) the tar files are
created so that they are unpacked in the external package  directory  of
your choosing and the "mscred" subdirectory will be created.

    % cd <path>                  # e.g. /iraf/extern or <mydir>/extern
    % tar xzf <file.gz>
    % ls -d mscred
    mscred

If  you  want  to  have  multiple  binaries,  such  as for a server, the
simplest thing  is  to  untar  each  architecture  version.   This  will
redundantly install the same source files which is harmless.

If  you  already  have an older mscred directory you should first remove
it.  If you want to have multiple versions  you  can  rename  it  as  an
older  version,  make  a  directory  for  the  new version, for instance
"mscredV5.0", and unpack in that directory.

    % cd <path>         # e.g. /iraf/extern
    % mv mscred <mscredOld> # if this is a directory
    % mkdir <mscredV>   # e.g. mscredV5.0
    % cd <mscredV>
    % tar xzf <gzfile>
    % cd ..
    % rm mscred         # if this is a previous link
    % ln -s <mscredV>/mscred .

Instead of using a link, as shown above, you can also specify paths  and
directories  as  you  wish  in the $iraf/unix/hlib/extern.pkg file, your
loginuser.cl file, or interactively as follows.

To define the package you need to an IRAF logical  path  to  the  mscred
directory  and a "task" declaration.  As noted above, this is often done
in the $iraf/unix/hlib/extern.pkg file but it can also be done  in  your
irafuser.csh  file  or  even interactively.  The statements you need are
something like:

    reset mscred = /local/mscred/
    task  mscred.pkg = mscred$mscred.cl

Be sure to end the directory path with '/'.

For the help files you must include

    mscred$lib/helpdb.mip

in the "helpdb" path.  A template of this is  found  in  the  extern.pkg
file or something like

    printf ("reset helpdb=%s,mscred$lib/helpdb.mip\nkeep\n",
        envget("helpdb")) | cl
    flpr

in  your  login.cl  or  loginuser.cl  file.   Make  sure there is "keep"
statement at the end of the file.



MSCDB

For NOAO Mosaic Imager data a separate instrument database  distribution
should    also    be    installed.     The    distribution    file    is   
"mscdb-univeral.tar.gz.  This is unpacked in some directory such as  the
directory   containing   the   mscred   package.   Then  in  extern.pkg, 
loginuser.cl, or login.cl add

    set mscdb = <path>/         # ending with '/'

This is usually done in the same way  and  place  that  you  define  the
mscred package.



COMPILING

If  you will be compiling the package, as opposed to installing a binary
distribution, then you need to  define  various  environment  variables.
The following is for Unix/csh which is the main supported environment.

    % setenv iraf /iraf/iraf/             # Path to IRAF root (example)
    % source $iraf/unix/hlib/irafuser.csh # Define rest of environment
    % setenv IRAFARCH redhat              # IRAF architecture
    % setenv mscred <path>/               # Path to package

where  you  need to supply the appropriate path to the IRAF installation
root in the first step and the IRAF  architecture  identifier  for  your
machine in the last step.

If  you  are  updating  to  a  newer  version  and you earlier built the
libraries and executables it is necessary to delete  these.   Otherwise,
depending  on  the  dates  of  files  in the new version and the locally
built libraries, it may cause the new version  to  be  ignored.   To  do
this  the  package  is  configured  "generic"  which puts all the binary
files in one binary directory,  the  files  are  deleted  and  then  you
continue in the same way as a completely new installation.

    cl> mkpkg generic
    cl> delete bin.<arch>/*      # Substitute redhat, etc.

Configure the package for the particular architecture to be built.

    cl> mkpkg <arch>            # Substitute redhat, etc.

This  will  change  the  bin  link  from bin.generic to bin.<arch>.  The
binary directory will be created if not present.  If an error occurs  in
setting  the  architecture then you may need to add an entry to the file
"mkpkg".  Just follow the examples in the file.

To create the executables and move them to the binary directory

    cl> mkpkg -p mscred         # build executables
    cl> mkpkg generic           # optionally restore generic setting

Check for errors.  If the  executables  are  not  moved  to  the  binary
directory  then the $mscred path package was not done correctly (such as
not having a trailing '/'.  The last step  restores  the  package  to  a
generic  configuration.  This is not necessary if you will only have one
architecture for the package.

This should complete the installation.  You can  now  load  the  package
and begin testing and use.
