Starting Figaro from ICL

Figaro can also be run from Starlink's Interactive Command Language (ICL). ICL is a command line interface which has intimate knowledge of the parameter system and of the command line syntax of Figaro commands. When your procedures get really tricky, ICL is probably a better command line interface than the Unix shell. But even in every-day use, ICL saves you masking all those Unix shell meta-characters.

You start ICL with the shell command

   % icl

Unlike the Figaro startup command, which only defines new commands for the Unix shell, this starts a new process, a new shell if you like. It is thus no big surprise that the prompt string changes to `ICL$>$'.

From this shell you start Figaro with

   ICL> figaro

which will respond with the familiar message

 ----------- Initialising for  Figaro ------------
              General data reduction
           Version 5.6-1 19 September 2002
 
           Type  "help figaro" for help
 
 Type "showme sun86" to browse HTML documentation
 
 Use "abbrev" and "noabbrev" to turn parameter name
 abbreviation on and off.

The 200-odd Figaro commands are now at your disposal. However, only the short names without the `fig_' prefix are available.

There is a demonstration procedure, which is intended as a test of the installation, but the script itself can give you hints about writing your own ICL procedures and about the syntax for command line parameters. To execute it, you need an X windows display.

To run the demo type:

   ICL> load $FIG_DIR/demo

To run the Specdre demo, which demonstrates how the Specdre Extension is used to e.g. gather fit results and pass them on to other applications, type

   ICL> load $FIG_DIR/demo_specdre

Once in ICL, you can initialise further packages, such as KAPPA

   ICL> kappa

Any additional initialisation may write a message to the terminal that some `key has been redefined'. This message indicates that the same command name is used in different packages and probably for quite different purposes. The latest initialisation overrides previous ones, and if you are using several packages it might be important to initialise them in the correct order.