-- Reorganization of the Network Archive

Reorganization of the Network Archive

The IRAF network archive has undergone minor reorganization. The iraf.old directory, long used to distribute a miscellaneous collection of files including external packages and their installation instructions, special files created for a few users on request, etc., has finally been retired. The contents of the directory have been frozen and archived in iraf.old/archive. Except where they pertain to old versions of IRAF which are also frozen, any files found in this directory are liable to be old and out-of-date.

The function of iraf.old has been taken over by the new directories iraf/extern, used to distribute NOAO/IRAF external packages, and iraf/misc, used to distribute miscellaneous IRAF software not part of the general IRAF release. The iraf/contrib directory, which is the same as /contrib, contains additional IRAF-related software contributed by projects or individuals outside the NOAO/IRAF group (this software is not supported by NOAO/IRAF). This directory is world writable and developers are invited to put their software, or at least a pointer to where it can be found, in this directory. When a new package is released or updated it may also be a good idea to post a message to the newsgroup adass.iraf.announce to let others know about the new software.

In summary, the subdirectories of most interest to users in the iraf directory are now:

    conf       ADASS Software Conference information
    contrib    Contributed software (same as /contrib)
    docs       IRAF user and technical documentation
    extern     IRAF external or layered packages
    misc       Miscellaneous IRAF software or other distributions
    v210       The IRAF V2.10 distributions for various platforms

Doug Tody, Jeannette Barnes

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