Document:     pygipsy

Purpose:      Python module interfacing with GIPSY

Category:     SYSTEM

File:         pygipsy.src

Author:       J.P. Terlouw

Description:  pygipsy implements a pre-compiled module which can be
              used for writing GIPSY tasks in Python.  Prerequisites are a
              supported architecture (now Linux or MacOS), Python 2.3 or
              higher, and NumPy.  If these requirements are not met, the
              installation procedure will produce a non-functional dummy
              module. When the requirements are met afterwards, the module
              can be built with 'p -rebuild pygipsy.src'.
              Pygipsy is fully documented in GIPSY's web pages.

Use:          From an executable Python program: "import gipsy"
              or "from gipsy import ...".

Updates:      Jul 11, 2007: JPT, Document created.
              Aug 23, 2007: JPT, Bug in Set.wminmax() fixed and
                                 make procedure improved.
              Aug 29, 2007: JPT, Import ggivtk only when necessary.
              Sep 19, 2007: JPT, Fixed cotrans bug, added userangle() and
                                 allow None for Ggi elements' help message.
              May 22, 2008: JPT, Moved from Pyrex to Cython and non-existing
                                 header items now raise KeyError exception. 
              Jun  5, 2008: JPT, Various improvements and extensions.
              Oct 28, 2008: JPT, Threading support for event driven tasks.
              Nov 24, 2008: JPT, Modified for gfortran.
              Jan 27, 2009: JPT, Added Set methods word(), read() and write().
              Feb 19, 2009: JPT, Implemented FITS pseudo sets.
              Feb 26, 2009: JPT, Allow multiple views per set.
              Mar  6, 2009: JPT, Implemented external event handling, PyQt4
                                 connection and the functions evalexpr()
                                 and unitfactor().
              Mar 20, 2009: JPT, Implemented QtLink class.
              Apr  8, 2009: JPT, QtLink improvements; removed PostScript doc.
              Apr 27, 2009: JPT, Implemented alternative WCS headers.
              Jun  8, 2009: JPT, Explicit numpy.int32 in polymask & ellipsemask.
              Feb 28, 2010: JPT, Added gipsy_logo(), returning a QLabel object.
              Aug 23, 2010: JPT, Implemented GTK- and Tk-connections.
              Nov 11, 2010: JPT, Implemented typecli() function.
              Mar  4, 2011: JPT, Added Set.max_cword, largest coordinate word.
              Apr 11, 2011: JPT, Added method Set.tablis().
              Apr 18, 2011: JPT, Added function aborttask(); added attribute
                                 'compare' to class QtLink.
              Apr 21, 2011: JPT, Fixed problem with new Cython's (0.14.1)
                                 handling of freed char* strings.
              May  9, 2011: JPT, Temporarily reverted to Cython 0.11.2 because
                                 of more problems with char* conversions.
              May 10, 2011: JPT, Fixed more char* string problems.
              May 18, 2011: JPT, Fixed string-related bug in Set header access.
              Jun  7, 2011: JPT, Fixed bug in CHAR-typed table column reading.
              Jun 20, 2011: JPT, Added alternative WCS to FITS pseudo set spec.
              Jul 18, 2011: JPT, Improved alternative WCS interaction.