Access to IPP smf files

getsmf

IPP smf files contain the results of camera stage processing. They are FITS format files containg tables with the photometric and astronometric measurements for the sources detected in a single exposure.

getsmf.php is a tool that may be used to retrieve an IPP smf file given certain parameters.

The url of the tool is

    http://misc.ipp.ifa.hawaii.edu/getsmf.php

When this page is accessed without parameters it simply displays an error message. With valid parameters the tool returns the contents of the selected smf file.

Note: Obviously displaying the contents of a FITS file in a web browser is not very useful. getsmf.php is intended to be accessed directly using HTTP. It is easy to write scripts that use the command line tools curl or wget to retrieve smf files using this tool.

For example, the following two equivalent unix commands copy the contents of the smf containing the results from the cameraRun with cam_id=1780283) to a local files:

    curl 'http://misc.ipp.ifa.hawaii.edu/getsmf.php?cam_id=1780283' -o 1780283.smf

    wget 'http://misc.ipp.ifa.hawaii.edu/getsmf.php?cam_id=1780283' -O 1780283-wget.smf

The previous method allows the user to control the name of the local copy. If one would like to use the original file name supplied by the server the commands may be changed to:

    curl 'http://misc.ipp.ifa.hawaii.edu/getsmf.php?cam_id=1780283' -O --remote-header-name

    wget 'http://misc.ipp.ifa.hawaii.edu/getsmf.php?cam_id=1780283' --content-disposition

In this example the name of the downloaded file is "o7616g0008o.1131492.cm.1780283.smf".

Note: The quote characters in these commands are needed to prevent the '?' characters from being interpreted by user's shell.

parameters

There are a few parameters that may be used to select specific smf files. Parameters are supplied by appending them to the base url following a '?' character.

If multiple parameters are needed they should be separated by a '&' character.

cam_id=value

The examples above demonstrated selection by cam_id. When a cam_id is supplied any other parameters supplied are ignored.

exp_name=value

Selects an smf file for an exposure with the given name.

For example supplying the parameter:

exp_name=o7616g0008o

gets the same result as the examples listed above. (As of the time of this writing).
Note that exposures may be processed multiple times. If no other selection parameters are found, the smf for the most recent processing is selected.

release=value

When used with exp_name, the release parameter specifies the ipp release (processing version) for the smf file.
For example:

exp_name=o5275g0401o&release=3PI.PV3

retrieves the smf processed for exposure o5275g0401o in 3PI.PV3. If the release were changed to 3PI.nightly the smf from the original nightly procecessing would be retrieved. (At the time of this writing, if the release parameter were omitted the 3PI.PV3 version would also be retrieved since it is currently the latest processing.)

data_group=value

This is a rarely used parameter. With exp_name, chooses smfs from camRuns processed as part of the supplied data group.

Errors and Exceptions

If an smf matching the supplied parameters is not found in the IPP, a message is included in the response. The http request succeeds.
After a user retrieves a file in this manner it should be checked to insure that it is actually a FITS format file. For example the following getsmf request asks for a non-existent smf:

    curl 'http://misc.ipp.ifa.hawaii.edu/getsmf.php?cam_id=99999999999' -o test.smf

After this command succeeds, the file test.smf is not a FITS file. Instead it contains text. This fact and its contents may be found with the following commands.

    $ file test.smf
    test.smf: ASCII text
    $ cat test.smf
    Could not find smf for cam_id: 99999999999.