Index of /ScienceArchive/download/EDR

      Name                   Last modified     Size  Description

[DIR] Parent Directory 21-Feb-03 12:02 - [CMP] sdssQT+Tools.tar.gz 28-Feb-02 10:53 467k [CMP] sdssQT.tar.gz 28-Feb-02 10:53 442k [CMP] sdssTools.tar.gz 28-Feb-02 10:53 25k

SDSS Query Tool and SDSS Tools v2.3.18 download

This page contains the tarballs for the SDSS Query Tool (sdssQT) and the SDSS Tools (sdssTools) package. The following files are available:
sdssQT+Tools.tar.gz - the Query Tool and Tools in one tarball;
sdssQT.tar.gz              - the SDSS Query Tool (see below);
sdssTools.tar.gz ;       - the SDSS Tools package (see below).


The SDSS Query Tool

Requirements

sdssQT runs on any platform that has tcl/tk version 8.0.  If you don't have tcl/tk 8, you can download the latest version for your platform from http://dev.scriptics.com/.  sdssQT consists merely of standard tcl code, no additional installation is necessary.  Windows is OK (see below), Mac not tested but should work fine (famous last words!).
 

Environment

Unix:

You need to have the HOME environment variable set to your home directory and you need  the variable SDSSQT_DIR (or SXGUI_DIR) to point to the sdssQT directory.
PATH needs to include the directories of sdssQT expects the executables 'wish' and 'netscape' to be in the path and to correspond to the correct versions. To test whether you have these programs in your path, simply use the 'which' command :

> which netscape

This should give you the path of the executable for netscape, if any. If you get 'command not found', you should update your PATH environment variable for it.  sdssQT resides in the sdssQT/bin directory.   So if you decide to install sdssQT into /usr/local/sdssQT add /usr/local/sdssQT/bin to your path.
 

Windows:

For Windows you need to set your following environment variables as indicated:
 
<variable name> 
 <action>
PATH 
include the path for the sdssQT\bin directory, making sure that you use the DOS "\" NOT the UNIX "/".
HOME
set this to the directory that the .sxSite and .sxSites files should be written to. In this case use the UNIX "/".
SDSSQT_DIR 
set this directory to where sdssQT is installed.  Again, use the UNIX "/"(e.g. c:/Programs/sdssQT).

The reason for using the back slash ("\") for PATH and forward slash ("/") for the other two variables is that PATH is interpreted by the Windows OS whereas HOME and SDSSQT_DIR are interpreted by Tcl/Tk, which does not handle the back slash by default.

For Windows versions earlier than Windows 2000 set the environment variables in autoexec.bat

For Windows 2000 or later, do NOT attempt to modify autoexec.bat!  This could make your Windows OS unusable.  Instead, select the following menu options:

Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> System --> Advanced --> Environment Variables

Remember that you will need to restart Windows after you modify the environment variables for the changes to take effect.
 

Installing sdssQT

Unix:

No special installation needed, just copy the sdssQT wherever you want.  If all environment variables have been updated correctly, just type sdssQT to run it.

There will be no problem with multiple users running the program since each user will have his/her configuration files in the directory pointed to by the $HOME environment variable.
 

Windows:

Rename bin\sdssQT into bin\sdssQT.tcl and make a shortcut to it on your desktop.   This way you can simply double-click on it to run.  If you modify your environment variables, you will need to reboot first (as usual).
 

First-time startup

If you start sdssQT for the first time, the QT generates its local  settings for you. Each user gets their own '.sx...' files in their home directory.  Then you can proceed to enter your username and password.   For SDSS public data (such as the EDR), the username/passwd is sdss/sdss or gues/archive.  If you are a collaboration user wishing to access private data, send email to jen_a@fnal.gov to get your username and password.

Files

Every user needs the SDSSQT_DIR environment to be set to the sdssQT directory path.  User customization is saved in the users $HOME directory:
 
$HOME/.sxconfig  Configuration options
$HOME/.sxPDconfig  Port Daemon host/port, server id
$HOME/.sxSite  Latest site you connected to
$HOME/.sxSites  Parameters for all currently available

Command-line switches

There are currently two useful command line switches, -nosxwm which will cause all the windows to be managed by your window manager instead of the sdssQT canvas (some people like this better...); and -debug which puts the sdssQT in debug mode and spews verbose debug output to the standard output.

Problems

The server status can be checked anytime by selecting "Check Connection" form the Server menu. If you are unsure about the server, check this first. There are queries that do take long to analyze.

If your query consistently 'disconnects' the server, report the query that caused it to the bug database. Also, scan it for syntax - you might be able to fix the problem yourself. Please, do report such queries.  Use the SDSS bug report system (GNATS) at http://www.astro.princeton.edu:81/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl.

If you get an error message stating that the server is down, "Contact administrator", please wait for 2 minutes. The Server should be restarted if it has crashed.  If you are sure that it was your query that has crashed it, report it through the bug reporting system.

Happy Querying!  More info is available at http://www.sdss.jhu.edu/


Binary and FITS Output from SDSS using sdssTools

The sdssQT provides a way to obtain query output in both ASCII (default) and binary mode. In order to convert either ASCII or binary output to FITS, you can redirect the output to one of the SDSS analysis tools available from the SDSS downloads web page.   The procedure for installing the sdssTools package and running the utilities available in it is described below.


Installing sdssTools

  1. In order for everything to compile, you need to set the CC environment variable to your ANSI C compiler. Usually, this is already set (cc for unix, gcc for linux) just check with echo $CC.

  2.  
  3. The FITS routines require CFITSIO to be installed. You can get CFITSIO from http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/fitsio.html.

  4. Be sure to set the environment variable CFITSIO_DIR to the directory where CFITSIO has been installed. If you don't need the FITS interface, just build with the nofits target (see below).
     
  5. Invoke

  6.  
      make <platform>


    where <platform> may be any of sdss,linux, solaris, osf, irix. sdss will install the makefiles intended to be used with sdssmake, the other keywords install the makefiles for the respective platform to be used with make.

    There is no reason why sdssTools should not compile on other platforms, but these are the platforms for which we have Makefiles. See the src and app directories and generate Makefiles for your platform if yours is not in the list (and you don't want to use sdssmake.) After that, invoke either sdssmake or make. The following targets are accepted:

      all         compile and link everything
      clean     delete .o files, libraries and executables
      nofits    compile and link without the fits dependency

Using sdssTools

Currently, these are the utilities available in sdssTools/bin after make has completed:

        sdssAsciiEcho [-f filename] [-p port]

Waits on a port (defaults to 8010) to accept a connection from the SDSS server. In the sdssQT, the output can be sent to a socket using the Output..Remote socket.. menu item. Specify your host and port where the sdssAsciiEcho is running. Every line it receives from the SDSS server are sent to stdout or to the file if the -f option was specified.

        sdssFitsEcho filename [-p port]

Same as sdssAsciiEcho except that a binary FITS table is created as the output. CFITSIO needs to be installed for this to work.
 

Reporting Bugs

Please use the usual bug reporting system on GNATS to report bugs on http://www.astro.princeton.edu:81/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl
Documentation suggestions to:
Ani Thakar
Last updated: Nov 25, 2002