Astro::FITS::Header and associated sub-classes are tools for reading, modifying and then writing out FITS standard header blocks to FITS, NDF and GSD files. The module now fully supports ESO HIERARCH header keywords. Support for instantiating Astro::FITS:Header objects from Starlink::AST FrameSet objects is also supported.
Full documentation is included in the POD attached to the modules.
This is a warning for those of you using the tied interface from previous versions of the module. The interface now acts very differently, theoretically the changes shouldn't break existing code, but it has diverged sufficiently far from the original that I'm no longer convinced that it will work in all cases. Be warned!
The Astro::FITS::Header module can work with FITS Header blocks, either directly from the primary FITS HDU of a file complying with the FITS data standard, or from the FITS extension in an extensible N-dimensional data format (NDF) file or from a Global Section Data file (GSD). Additionally the module also supports .HEADER in HDS contanier files, and Starlink::AST FrameSet objects.
To work with FITS files, the Astro::FITS::Header module requires Pete Ratzlaff's <pratzlaff@cfa.harvard.edu> Astro::FITS::CFITSIO library (v 1.01 or greater), which in turn requires William Pence's CFITSIO subroutine library (v2.430 or greater). It should be noted that to build the CFITSIO subroutine library on RedHat Linux 7.x you need to use version 2.202 or above, however the module requires v2.400 at least to work with the Astro::FITS::CFITSIO module.
For more information on CFITSIO, see http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio/
To work with NDF, HDS and GSD files, the Astro::FITS::Header module requires Tim Jenness' <t.jenness@jach.hawaii.edu> NDF (version 1.42 or greater) and GSD modules. These modules are installed as part of the PERLMODS package in the Starlink Software Collection.
To work with AST FrameSet objects the Starlink::AST module is required, this module (should) be available from CPAN or by contacting the authors of this package.
For more information on the Starlink Software Collection and the Starlink Project in general see http://www.starlink.ac.uk/
The package provides the following classes
Astro::FITS::Header
Astro::FITS::Header::Item
Astro::FITS::Header::NDF
Astro::FITS::Header::CFITSIO
Astro::FITS::Header::GSD
Astro::FITS::Header::AST
which all include POD format documentation.
The package is availabe from CPAN <http://www.cpan.org/> and from http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/aa/pages/computing/fitsheader.html
Installation is automated using the ExtUtils::MakeMaker library
% perl Build.PL
% ./Build
% ./Build test
% ./Build install
If the Astro::FITS::CFITSIO, NDF or Starlink::AST modules are not installed 'make test' will detect this and skip the test harness for the relevant modules with a warning.
Due to misunderstandings on the CPAN versioning scheme all modules in this release have jumped to version >= 3.0 to force reindexing. Patch numbers are no longer included in the distribution.
The module was originally written by Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>, of the University of Exeter Astrophysics Group (http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/) as part of his work for the Starlink Project (http://www.starlink.ac.uk/), and Tim Jenness <timj@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy Center (JAC) (http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/) in Hawaii.
This version of the module includes patches supplied by Diab Jerius <dj@head-cfa.harvard.edu>, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and by Jim Lewis <jrl@ast.cam.ac.uk>, of the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit at the Institute of Astronomy, to allow access to Multi-Extension FITS files.
The tied interface was updated for version 2.x by Craig DeForest <deforest@boulder.swri.edu> of the Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute and Tim Jenness <timj@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy Center (JAC) in Hawaii. Patches to fix some bugs in the tied interface when dealing with blank cards were supplied by Brad Cavangh <bradc@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy Center (JAC) in Hawaii.
Modifications to parse ESO HIERARCH keywords, read-only, were added by Malcolm Currie <mjc@star.rl.ac.uk> of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
For full details of who did what, and when, see the ChangeLog.
The package is currently maintained by Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>, please direct comments and patches to him in the first instance.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
For full details of changes see the ChangeLog
V3.03
V3.02
V3.01
V3.0
V2.9.2: