error message when starting “cl”

beaulieusf wrote on Jul 13, 2009

Hello,

I have just installed iraf on a Mac OSX PPC Tiger and when I type the command
"cl" I get this error message:

**: /
^
ERROR: syntax error
called as:`cl ()'
called as:`cl ()'
Error while reading login.cl file - may need to rebuild with mkiraf
Fatal startup error. CL dies.

Even re-running mkiraf does not solve the problem.

The iraf version is 2.14.1

Any idea how to solve this?

Thanks,

-Sylvie.

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Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Jul 13, 2009

Check your hlib$extern.pkg file for any indication of a misplaced '/'. This file is read at startup automatically and is often the cause of syntax errors like this. If you don't see anything obvious, you could also put the command "d_trace" at the top of your login.cl file, the last screen full of info around the error might provide a clue about where this is happening.

I seem to remember a similar report but not that it was ever resolved. Are you using SciSoft or a distribution/installation from this site?

-Mike

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beaulieusf wrote on Jul 13, 2009

Indeed, it was a / misplaced in the extern.pkg file just before the helpdb
begins. Just before receiving your solution, I started to looking at that file
after reading a post from last year with a similar problem.

Now, all is OK.

I installed iraf from scratch (creating an iraf account) because scisoft is
no longer available for MacOSX PPcs and I still have 8 of those to
support.

Thanks!

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Last post on Jul 13, 2009