Conventions

In this manual we use some typographical conventions to help clarify the presentation.

Terms that are introduced for the first time are italicized.

Command Examples

Computer system names and program names appear in a different typeface, e.g. XBONES is the name of one of the ATCA observing control computers and ATCAOBS is the name of the main ATCA observing program.

Command examples and filenames appear in a fixed-width typeface and separated from the normal flow of text. To indicate the context, the commands are shown with the program’s command prompt or the operating system’s prompt. For example:

caobs> track 1

is the command used to track an object, in the ATCAOBS program. It may seem obvious, but you should not type the text of the prompt when entering commands.

Optional command parameters appear [in square brackets]. Do not type these brackets when entering commands.

When there are several options for the value of a command parameter, the options are shown separated by the | character. For example:

caobs> corr attens [{on|off]

shows that the corr attens command has an optional parameter which can take the values on or off. Type only the option you choose and omit the | character when entering the command.

Another example - when running the ls command from the operating system shell, to list the files in a directory:

$ ls

The ‘$’ is the operating system prompt, and the command is ‘ls’.

Linux/UNIX is case-sensitive, so operating system commands must be typed in the correct case (usually lower case).

Environment Variables

Another important notation is for environment variables set in the operating system shell. These are frequently used as shorthand references in the running text. They are shown in fixed-width font and prefixed with a $ sign, for example:

The $ATCA_SCHED environment variable contains the name of the directory where the scheduler program is installed. It is automatically set on login. The usual setting is /atomsexport/caobsonline/caobs_sched.