IRAF 2.18 Release Notes

Authors:

IRAF Community, NOIRLab

Date:

April 05, 2024

The current IRAF version 2.18 is available from Github at

https://github.com/iraf-community/iraf/releases/tag/v2.18

Changes to the version 2.17.1 include:

  • Integration of NOIRLab changes

    NOIRLab recently published their own 2.18 version with the scope limited to the support of the Gemini data reduction pipeline. All NOIRLab changes are bugfixes, based on NOAO version 2.16.1. They were reviewed and (if useful) integrated into the IRAF baseline. This merge also triggers the update of the major version number to be in sync with the NOIRlab version.

  • VOTable support removed

    This is a consequence of merging the changes from NOIRlab, resulting in a significant simplification of the code. If this creates significant problems to the users, we will re-add VOTable support, however.

  • Command Language start script renamed to irafcl

    As already done since years in several Linux distributions, the cl and ecl scripts are renamed to irafcl. cl and ecl often conflict with the Common Lisp executable names and require third special effort by third parties to circumvent problems. For compatibility, cl and ecl are still provided as links, but their use is deprecated. Please use irafcl instead. A man page is provided.

  • Support for the LoongArch architecture

    Support for using IRAF on the Chinese LoongArch LA64 architecture was added. Binaries will be provided as part of the Debian loong64 port.

  • Bug fixes and code cleanup

    As before, a number of bugs was fixed in this release. Cleaning up the code and modernization of the code structure continued. This is in large parts a benefit of integrating the NOIRLab changes.

Detailed list of changes

This list shows all pull requests that were merged since 2.17.1.

  • Makefile install fixes found when creating the Debian package (#315)

  • Strip more files from the installed package (#316)

  • C tweaks to make f2c compileable on Debian/mipsel (#317)

  • Fix iraf$ variable for “inplace” (personal) installation (#318)

  • Rename ecl canonical name to irafcl (#323)

  • Remove version information from CITATION.cff (#332)

  • Remove VOTable support (#330)

  • Extend (E)CL testing (#368)

  • NOIRLAB: Re-add the vtel package (#343)

  • NOIRLAB: Update observatory database (#344)

  • NOIRLAB: Clean up tbtables package (#345)

  • NOIRLAB: Force exclusion of .git directory from processing in rmbin and rmfiles (#362)

  • NOIRLAB: Remove unused variabled from nttables (#351)

  • NOIRLAB: Restore missing font data files in sys/gio/fonts (#356)

  • NOIRLAB: string buffer fix in mii_readc in “help” package (#355)

  • NOIRLAB: Potential xc/xpp string overflow fixes (#349)

  • NOIRLAB: Small fixes in IRAF system packages (#363)

  • NOIRLAB: Remove or comment out unused variables (#352)

  • NOIRLAB: Small bugfixes for libsys (#361)

  • NOIRLAB: Small “noao” package fixes (#360)

  • NOIRLAB: fixes and cleanup for the “mkpkg” tool (#348)

  • NOIRLAB: cosmetic change for the “generic” tool (#347)

  • NOIRLAB: minor libboot.a improvements (#350)

  • NOIRLAB: Improve (E)CL code internals (#364)

  • NOIRLAB: Rewrite file taken from IRAF64 (#353)

  • NOIRLAB: zzsetenv.def updates (#365)

  • NOIRLAB: several patches for libos.a (#346)

  • Use fpurge/__fpurge to cancel buffered output (#366)

  • Add support for LoongArch (#371)

  • Update INSTALL.md typo (#373)

  • New Github runner for Mac M1 (#374)

  • Fix problems with using f2c.e/f77.sh on plain Fortran files (#370)

  • Remove outdated options from XC (#372)

  • Provide compatibility link to mkfloat.csh (#375)

  • NOIRLAB: Don’t add to helpdb var if no helpdb.mip (sqiid/upsqiid) (#378)

  • CI workflow: update actions/checkout to v4 (#382)

  • NOIRLAB: Add numerical recipes to libxtools for Noirlab compatibility (#387)

  • Allow empty IRAFARCH in irafpath() (#388)