The ISISscripts are written and maintained by the Remeis observatory. They contain hundreds of useful functions, written for the X-ray data analysis software isis (Interactive Spectral Interpretation System, homepage), which is written in the scripting language SLang (homepage). In case you have questions or comments, you can write us an email.

These scripts were started by Manfred Hanke, but soon filled with more functions by many people at the Remeis observatory. Although some functions are quite specialized, the majority of the functions can be widely used. These function range from general SLang functions for array manipulation or adaptive integration routines, to parallel fitting functions (together with the Remeis SLmpi module) or powerful plotting routines (written by Mike Nowak, see homepage). Usually these functions are well documented with internal help functions. General tips, tricks, and examples can also be found on our wiki page

The ISISscripts contain functions for the following fields:

X-ray data analysis
Timing analysis
Multiwavelength studies (including, e.g., radio and gamma-ray data)
Advanced spectral fitting tools (e.g., simultaneous data fitting)
Advanced plotting routines, employing SLXfig
Parallel computation routines (uncertainties, contours, ...)
and many more

A list of publications using the ISISscripts can be found here.

Download

The newest version of the isisscripts can be downloaded by clicking on the button to the right. It contains the latest stable release. Note that these scripts are updated almost daily, Hence, if you would like to stay up-to-date, it might be best to schedule a cron-job and fetch the file via a wget command.

Note that for very few functions external reference data might be needed. The funtion will notify you if an additional download is necessary. The complete set of reference data can be downloaded here: refdata.tgz. It simply needs to be unpacked in the same directory as the normal scripts (see instructions below).

Requirements

The isisscripts require recent version of SLang and ISIS installed. Therefore it is probably necessary to install them from the provided GIT archvies. You need at least isis v1.6.2 (download) and slang v2.3.1 (download) installed.

Installation

Move the isisscripts.tgz to the folder where you want to store the scripts and unpack it:

 tar xfz isisscripts.tgz

It contains the actual functions (isisscripts.sl) and the documentation (isisscripts.txt).

How to use the ISISscripts

Load the single S-Lang script `isisscripts.sl`, which contains all functions of this package and which is located in its `share/` directory, with
```
require("/path/to/isisscripts/share/isisscripts");
```
or
```
()=evalfile("/path/to/isisscripts/share/isisscripts.sl");
```
If you use the ISISscripts frequently, it may be convenient to add the command
```
add_to_isis_load_path("/path/to/isisscripts/share/");
```
to your personal `~/.isisrc` startup file (or the system-wide `/path/to/isis/etc/local.sl`, if you have access to that.)

With such a setup, it is sufficient to run:
```
require("isisscripts");
```
The file isisscripts.txt contains documentation of most of the functions in the ISISscripts package. If it is in the same directory as `isisscripts.sl`, it will be automatically added to ISIS' interactive help.

How to cite the ISISscripts

If you find a function (or a set of functions) from the ISISscripts particularly helpful for your data analysis with ISIS, and therefore want to acknowledge the package, you can add a sentence like

This research has made use of a collection of ISIS functions (ISISscripts) provided by ECAP/Remeis observatory and MIT (http://www.sternwarte.uni-erlangen.de/isis/).

If you want to thank the specific developers, find out from the git repository's version history who has contributed to the function(s).

Development and `git`-repository

The complete git-repository of the ISISscripts can be obtained with

 git clone http://www.sternwarte.uni-erlangen.de/git.public/isisscripts

All recent changes are documented in a git archive (see below or follow the link here). If you intend to edit the ISISscripts (and have the permissions to do so), please have a look at the README file in the git before.