Problems with external packages on Cygwin install

Dr. Ronak Y. Shah wrote on Apr 26, 2007

Hi:

I recently installed IRAF under Cygwin (Windows XP) including all of the external packages. I can start iraf with 'ecl' or 'cl' and all of the packages are visible. Doing the typical "stsdas" to get into the stsdas hierarchy, however breaks:

Warning: no login.cl found in login directory

Furthermore, the help does not work:

ecl> help
Cannot open help database file nlocal$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file mscred$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file ctio$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file stsdas$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file vol$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file tables$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file color$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file nmisc$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file dimsum$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file fitsutil$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file spectime$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file finder$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file gemini$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file mxtools$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file ace$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file guiapps$lib/helpdb.mip
dataio - Data format conversion package (RFITS, etc.)
dbms - Database management package (not yet implemented)
images - General image processing package
language - The command language itself
lists - List processing package
local - The template local package
obsolete - Obsolete tasks
noao - The NOAO optical astronomy packages
plot - Plot package
proto - Prototype or interim tasks
softools - Software tools package
system - System utilties package
utilities - Miscellaneous utilities package

Any clues?

Cheers,
rys

---

Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Apr 26, 2007

I recently installed IRAF under Cygwin (Windows XP) including all of the external packages. I can start iraf with 'ecl' or 'cl' and all of the packages are visible. Doing the typical "stsdas" to get into the stsdas hierarchy, however breaks:

Warning: no login.cl found in login directory

This particular message you should only see when you first type 'cl', are you saying you see it when loading the stsdas package instead?

Furthermore, the help does not work:

ecl> help
Cannot open help database file nlocal$lib/helpdb.mip
Cannot open help database file mscred$lib/helpdb.mip
:

Packages are defined in the hlib$extern.pkg file and specifically the 'helpdb' string defines a list of help databases to be searched. This message either means thos packages aren't installed, or the definition of e.g. the 'mscred' directory path is wrong (such as missing a trailing '/'). If you edited this file, be sure the last line of the file is the 'keep' statement.

-Mike

---

Dr. Ronak Y. Shah wrote on Apr 26, 2007

yes, the param error occurs when trying to access any of the external packages.

I have since I installed iraf, logged out and rebooted my machine. Same error occurs.

I have not touched the hlib$extern file.

-rys

---

Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Apr 26, 2007

If you didn't edit the extern.pkg file, how/where did you declare stsdas? Note that a 'keep' must also be the last line of a login.cl/loginuser.cl. Is there a similar problem trying to explicitly load the NOAO package? Can you 'lpar stsdas' to see the parameter file?

-Mike

---

Last post on Apr 26, 2007