*FAQ: Should I keep the CIAO 3.4 installation in my system now that
CIAO4.0 is released?*
CIAO 4.0 is a major release which includes two newly re-written
packages: ChIPS (the plotting package) and Sherpa (the modeling and
fitting package).
For both ChIPS and Sherpa the syntax and the language have changed since
CIAO3.4 and some time and effort will be probably required by users to
learn the new system.
In the case of ChIPS scripts written with the old language/syntax will
not work. As explained in
http://cxc.harvard.edu/chips/syntax.html
the CXC is committed to helping ChIPS users transition to new syntax as
smoothly as possible. Old ChIPS scripts or save files, submitted to CXC
via the Helpdesk and we will be translated to the CIAO 4.0 syntax.
Sherpa is released as a beta version.
While all the basic functionality needed to analyse Chandra data is
there, this is the initial phase of the Sherpa redesign and not all of
the functionality of the CIAO 3.4 version is implemented yet (we
anticipate additional releases in 2008).
This beta release supports fitting 1D X-ray spectra from Chandra, as
well as some 1D non X-ray data, including ASCII data arrays and
lightcurves. Simple 2D spatial fits works with limited support for
analyses that include PSFs.
The About the Sherpa Beta Release page at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/sherpabeta/about.html
outlines new features and provides a summary of missing items.
Script written with the old Sherpa language/syntax will equally not work
in the new system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*FAQ: How do I access both versions of CIAO on my system?*
The easiest way is to create two different aliases.
For example:
alias ciao4 "source <my-ciao4.0-install-dir>/bin/ciao.csh"
alias ciao34 "source <my-ciao3.4-install-dir>/bin/ciao.csh"
Then running
prompt> ciao4 -o
or
prompt> ciao34 -o
allows to easily switch from one versions to the other.
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