https://github.com/astropy/astropy
Tip revision: 83b72b64933dc9b0d46ab63834142afa78722cf7 authored by Erik M. Bray on 01 July 2014, 16:58:32 UTC
Preparing release 0.4rc1
Preparing release 0.4rc1
Tip revision: 83b72b6
CHANGES.rst
0.4rc1 (2014-07-01)
-------------------
New Features
^^^^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.constants``
- Added ``b_wien`` to represent Wien wavelength displacement law constant.
[#2194]
- ``astropy.convolution``
- Changed the input parameter in ``Gaussian1DKernel`` and
``Gaussian2DKernel`` from ``width`` to ``stddev`` [#2085].
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- The coordinates package has undergone major changes to implement
`APE5 <https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/blob/master/APE5.rst>`_ .
These include backwards-incompatible changes, as the underlying framework
has changed substantially. See the APE5 text and the package documentation
for more details. [#2422]
- A ``position_angle`` method has been added to the new ``SkyCoord``. [#2487]
- Updated ``Angle.dms`` and ``Angle.hms`` to return ``namedtuple`` -s instead
of regular tuples, and added ``Angle.signed_dms`` attribute that gives the
absolute value of the ``d``, ``m``, and ``s`` along with the sign. [#1988]
- By default, ``Distance`` objects are now required to be positive. To
allow negative values, set ``allow_negative=True`` in the ``Distance``
constructor when creating a ``Distance`` instance.
- ``Longitude`` (resp. ``Latitude``) objects cannot be used any more to
initialize or set ``Latitude`` (resp. ``Longitude``) objects. An explicit
conversion to ``Angle`` is now required. [#2461]
- The deprecated functions for pre-0.3 coordinate object names like
``ICRSCoordinates`` have been removed. [#2422]
- The ``rotation_matrix`` and ``angle_axis`` functions in
``astropy.coordinates.angles`` were made more numerically consistent and
are now tested explicitly [#2619]
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- Added ``z_at_value`` function to find the redshift at which a cosmology
function matches a desired value. [#1909]
- Added ``FLRW.differential_comoving_volume`` method to give the differential
comoving volume at redshift z. [#2103]
- The functional interface is now deprecated in favor of the more-explicit
use of methods on cosmology objects. [#2343]
- Updated documentation to reflect the removal of the functional
interface. [#2507]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- The ``astropy.io.ascii`` output formats ``latex`` and ``aastex`` accept a
dictionary called ``latex_dict`` to specify options for LaTeX output. It is
now possible to specify the table alignment within the text via the
``tablealign`` keyword. [#1838]
- If ``header_start`` is specified in a call to ``ascii.get_reader`` or any
method that calls ``get_reader`` (e.g. ``ascii.read``) but ``data_start``
is not specified at the same time, then ``data_start`` is calculated so
that the data starts after the header. Before this, the default was
that the header line was read again as the first data line
[#855 and #1844].
- A new ``csv`` format was added as a convenience for handling CSV (comma-
separated values) data. [#1935]
This format also recognises rows with an inconsistent number of elements.
[#1562]
- An option was added to guess the start of data for CDS format files when
they do not strictly conform to the format standard. [#2241]
- Added an HTML reader and writer to the ``astropy.io.ascii`` package.
Parsing requires the installation of BeautifulSoup and is therefore
an optional feature. [#2160]
- Added support for inputting column descriptions and column units
with the ``io.ascii.SExtractor`` reader. [#2372]
- Allow the use of non-local ReadMe files in the CDS reader. [#2329]
- Provide a mechanism to select how masked values are printed. [#2424]
- Added support for reading multi-aperture daophot file. [#2656]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Included a new command-line script called ``fitsheader`` to display the
header(s) of a FITS file from the command line. [#2092]
- Added new verification options ``fix+ignore``, ``fix+warn``,
``fix+exception``, ``silentfix+ignore``, ``silentfix+warn``, and
``silentfix+exception`` which give more control over how to report fixable
errors as opposed to unfixable errors.
- ``astropy.modeling``
- Prototype implementation of fitters that treat optimization algorithms
separately from fit statistics, allowing new fitters to be created by
mixing and matching optimizers and statistic functions. [#1914]
- Slight overhaul to how inputs to and outputs from models are handled with
respect to array-valued parameters and variables, as well as sets of
multiple models. See the associated PR and the modeling section of the
v0.4 documentation for more details. [#2634]
- Added a new ``SimplexLSQFitter`` which uses a downhill simplex optimizer
with a least squares statistic. [#1914]
- Changed ``Gaussian2D`` model such that ``theta`` now increases
counterclockwise. [#2199]
- Replaced the ``MatrixRotation2D`` model with a new model called simply
``Rotation2D`` which requires only an angle to specify the rotation.
The new ``Rotation2D`` rotates in a counter-clockwise sense whereas
the old ``MatrixRotation2D`` increased the angle clockwise.
[#2266, #2269]
- Added a new ``AffineTransformation2D`` model which serves as a
replacement for the capability of ``MatrixRotation2D`` to accept an
arbitrary matrix, while also adding a translation capability. [#2269]
- Added ``GaussianAbsorption1D`` model. [#2215]
- New ``Redshift`` model [#2176].
- ``astropy.nddata``
- Allow initialization ``NDData`` or ``StdDevUncertainty`` with a
``Quantity``. [#2380]
- ``astropy.stats``
- Added flat prior to binom_conf_interval and binned_binom_proportion
- ``astropy.sphinx``
- Note, the following new features are included in astropy-helpers as well:
- The ``automodapi`` and ``automodsumm`` extensions now include sphinx
configuration options to write out what ``automodapi`` and ``automodsumm``
generate, mainly for debugging purposes. [#1975, #2022]
- Reference documentation now shows functions/class docstrings at the
inteded user-facing API location rather than the actual file where
the implementation is found. [#1826]
- The ``automodsumm`` extension configuration was changed to generate
documentation of class ``__call__`` member functions. [#1817, #2135]
- ``automodapi`` and ``automodsumm`` now have an ``:allowed-package-names:``
option that make it possible to document functions and classes that
are in a different namespace. [#2370]
- ``astropy.table``
- Improved grouped table aggregation by using the numpy ``reduceat()`` method
when possible. This can speed up the operation by a factor of at least 10
to 100 for large unmasked tables and columns with relatively small
group sizes. [#2625]
- Allow row-oriented data input using a new ``rows`` keyword argument.
[#850]
- Allow subclassing of ``Table`` and the component classes ``Row``, ``Column``,
``MaskedColumn``, ``TableColumns``, and ``TableFormatter``. [#2287]
- Fix to allow numpy integer types as valid indices into tables in
Python 3.x [#2477]
- Remove transition code related to the order change in ``Column`` and
``MaskedColumn`` arguments ``name`` and ``data`` from Astropy 0.2
to 0.3. [#2511]
- Change HTML table representation in IPython notebook to show all
table columns instead of restricting to 80 column width. [#2651]
- ``astropy.time``
- Mean and apparent sidereal time can now be calculated using the
``sidereal_time`` method [#1418].
- The time scale now defaults to UTC if no scale is provided. [#2091]
- ``TimeDelta`` objects can have all scales but UTC, as well as, for
consistency with time-like quantities, undefined scale (where the
scale is taken from the object one adds to or subtracts from).
This allows, e.g., to work consistently in TDB. [#1932]
- ``Time`` now supports ISO format strings that end in "Z". [#2211, #2203]
- ``astropy.units``
- Support for the unit format `Office of Guest Investigator Programs (OGIP)
FITS files
<http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/ofwg/docs/general/ogip_93_001/>`__
has been added. [#377]
- The ``spectral`` equivalency can now handle angular wave number. [#1306 and
#1899]
- Added ``one`` as a shorthand for ``dimensionless_unscaled``. [#1980]
- Added ``dex`` and ``dB`` units. [#1628]
- Added ``temperature()`` equivalencies to support conversion between
Kelvin, Celsius, and Fahrenheit. [#2209]
- Added ``temperature_energy()`` equivalencies to support conversion
between electron-volt and Kelvin. [#2637]
- The runtime of ``astropy.units.Unit.compose`` is greatly improved
(by a factor of 2 in most cases) [#2544]
- Added ``electron`` unit. [#2599]
- ``astropy.utils``
- ``timer.RunTimePredictor`` now uses ``astropy.modeling`` in its
``do_fit()`` method. [#1896]
- ``astropy.vo``
- A new sub-package, ``astropy.vo.samp``, is now available (this was
previously the SAMPy package, which has been refactored for use in
Astropy). [#1907]
- Enhanced functionalities for ``VOSCatalog`` and ``VOSDatabase``. [#1206]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- astropy now requires wcslib version 4.23 or later. The version of
wcslib included with astropy has been updated to version 4.23.
- Bounds checking is now performed on native spherical
coordinates. Any out-of-bounds values will be returned as
``NaN``, and marked in the ``stat`` array, if using the
low-level ``wcslib`` interface such as
``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.p2s``. [#2107]
- A new method, ``astropy.wcs.WCS.compare()``, compares two wcsprm
structs for equality with varying degrees of strictness. [#2361]
- New ``astropy.wcs.utils`` module, with a handful of tools for manipulating
WCS objects, including dropping, swapping, and adding axes.
- Misc
- Includes the new astropy-helpers package which separates some of Astropy's
build, installation, and documentation infrastructure out into an
independent package, making it easier for Affiliated Packages to depend on
these features. astropy-helpers replaces/deprecates some of the submodules
in the ``astropy`` package (see API Changes below). See also
`APE 4 <https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/blob/master/APE4.rst>`_
for more details on the motivation behind and implementation of
astropy-helpers. [#1563]
API Changes
^^^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.config``
- The configuration system received a major overhaul, as part of APE3. It is
no longer possible to save configuration items from Python, but instead
users must edit the configuration file directly. The locations of
configuration items have moved, and some have been changed to science state
values. The old locations should continue to work until astropy 0.5, but
deprecation warnings will be displayed. See the `Configuration transition
<http://astropy.readthedocs.org/en/v0.4/config/config_0_4_transition.html>`_
docs for a detailed description of the changes and how to update existing
code. [#2094]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- The ``astropy.io.fits.new_table`` function is now fully deprecated (though
will not be removed for a long time, considering how widely it is used).
Instead please use the more explicit ``BinTableHDU.from_columns`` to create
a new binary table HDU, and the similar ``TableHDU.from_columns`` to create
a new ASCII table. These otherwise accept the same arguments as
``new_table`` which is now just a wrapper for these.
- The ``.fromstring`` classmethod of each HDU type has been simplified such
that, true to its namesake, it only initializes an HDU from a string
containing its header *and* data.
- Fixed an issue where header wildcard matching (for example
``header['DATE*']``) can be used to match *any* characters that might
appear in a keyword. Previously this only matched keywords containing
characters in the set ``[0-9A-Za-z_]``. Now this can also match a hyphen
``-`` and any other characters, as some conventions like ``HIERARCH`` and
record-valued keyword cards allow a wider range of valid characters than
standard FITS keywords.
- This will be the *last* release to support the following APIs that have
been marked deprecated since Astropy v0.1/PyFITS v3.1:
- The ``CardList`` class, which was part of the old header implementation.
- The ``Card.key`` attribute. Use ``Card.keyword`` instead.
- The ``Card.cardimage`` and ``Card.ascardimage`` attributes. Use simply
``Card.image`` or ``str(card)`` instead.
- The ``create_card`` factory function. Simply use the normal ``Card``
constructor instead.
- The ``create_card_from_string`` factory function. Use ``Card.fromstring``
instead.
- The ``upper_key`` function. Use ``Card.normalize_keyword`` method
instead (this is not unlikely to be used outside of PyFITS itself, but it
was technically public API).
- The usage of ``Header.update`` with ``Header.update(keyword, value,
comment)`` arguments. ``Header.update`` should only be used analogously
to ``dict.update``. Use ``Header.set`` instead.
- The ``Header.ascard`` attribute. Use ``Header.cards`` instead for a list
of all the ``Card`` objects in the header.
- The ``Header.rename_key`` method. Use ``Header.rename_keyword`` instead.
- The ``Header.get_history`` method. Use ``header['HISTORY']`` instead
(normal keyword lookup).
- The ``Header.get_comment`` method. Use ``header['COMMENT']`` instead.
- The ``Header.toTxtFile`` method. Use ``header.totextfile`` instead.
- The ``Header.fromTxtFile`` method. Use ``Header.fromtextfile`` instead.
- The ``tdump`` and ``tcreate`` functions. Use ``tabledump`` and
``tableload`` respectively.
- The ``BinTableHDU.tdump`` and ``tcreate`` methods. Use
``BinTableHDU.dump`` and ``BinTableHDU.load`` respectively.
- The ``txtfile`` argument to the ``Header`` constructor. Use
``Header.fromfile`` instead.
- The ``startColumn`` and ``endColumn`` arguments to the ``FITS_record``
constructor. These are unlikely to be used by any user code.
These deprecated interfaces will be removed from the development version of
Astropy following the v0.4 release (they will still be available in any
v0.4.x bugfix releases, however).
- ``astropy.modeling``
- The method computing the derivative of the model with respect
to parameters was renamed from ``deriv`` to ``fit_deriv``. [#1739]
- ``ParametricModel`` and the associated ``Parametric1DModel`` and
``Parametric2DModel`` classes have been renamed ``FittableModel``,
``Fittable1DModel``, and ``Fittable2DModel`` respectively. The base
``Model`` class has subsumed the functionality of the old
``ParametricModel`` class so that all models support parameter constraints.
The only distinction of ``FittableModel`` is that anything which subclasses
it is assumed "safe" to use with Astropy fitters. [#2276]
- ``NonLinearLSQFitter`` has been renamed ``LevMarLSQFitter`` to emphasise
that it uses the Levenberg-Marquardt optimization algorithm with a
least squares statistic function. [#1914]
- The ``SLSQPFitter`` class has been renamed ``SLSQPLSQFitter`` to emphasize
that it uses the Sequential Least Squares Programming optimization
algorithm with a least squares statistic function. [#1914]
- The ``Fitter.errorfunc`` method has been renamed to the more general
``Fitter.objective_function``. [#1914]
- ``astropy.nddata``
- Issue warning if unit is changed from a non-trivial value by directly
setting ``NDData.unit``. [#2411]
- The ``mask`` and ``flag`` attributes of ``astropy.nddata.NDData`` can now
be set with any array-like object instead of requiring that they be set
with a ``numpy.ndarray``. [#2419]
- ``astropy.sphinx``
- Use of the ``astropy.sphinx`` module is deprecated; all new development of
this module is in ``astropy_helpers.sphinx`` which should be used instead
(therefore documentation builds that made use of any of the utilities in
``astropy.sphinx`` now have ``astropy_helpers`` as a documentation
dependency).
- ``astropy.table``
- The default table printing function now shows a table header row for units
if any columns have the unit attribute set. [#1282]
- Before, an unmasked ``Table`` was automatically converted to a masked
table if generated from a masked Table or a ``MaskedColumn``.
Now, this conversion is only done if explicitly requested or if any
of the input values is actually masked. [#1185]
- The repr() function of ``astropy.table.Table`` now shows the units
if any columns have the unit attribute set. [#2180]
- ``astropy.time``
- Correct use of UT in TDB calculation [#1938, #1939].
- ``TimeDelta`` objects can have scales other than TAI [#1932].
- Location information should now be passed on via an ``EarthLocation``
instance or anything that initialises it, e.g., a tuple containing
either geocentric or geodetic coordinates. [#1928]
- ``astropy.units``
- ``Quantity`` now converts input to float by default, as this is physically
most sensible for nearly all units [#1776].
- ``Quantity`` comparisons with ``==`` or ``!=`` now always return ``True``
or ``False``, even if units do not match (for which case a ``UnitsError``
used to be raised). [#2328]
- Applying ``float`` or ``int`` to a ``Quantity`` now works for all
dimensionless quantities; they are automatically converted to unscaled
dimensionless. [#2249]
- The exception ``astropy.units.UnitException``, which was
deprecated in astropy 0.2, has been removed. Use
``astropy.units.UnitError`` instead [#2386]
- Initializing a ``Quantity`` with a valid number/array with a ``unit``
attribute now interprets that attribute as the units of the input
value. This makes it possible to initialize a ``Quantity`` from an
`~astropy.table.Table` column and have it correctly pick up the units
from the column. [#2486]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- ``calcFootprint`` was deprecated. It is replaced by
``calc_footprint``. An optional boolean keyword ``center`` was
added to ``calc_footprint``. It controls whether the centers or
the corners of the pixels are used in the computation. [#2384]
- ``astropy.wcs.WCS.sip_pix2foc`` and
``astropy.wcs.WCS.sip_foc2pix`` formerly did not conform to the
``SIP`` standard: ``CRPIX`` was added to the ``foc`` result so
that it could be used as input to "core FITS WCS". As of astropy
0.4, ``CRPIX`` is no longer added to the result, so the ``foc``
space is correct as defined in the `SIP convention
<http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ASPC..347..491S>`__. [#2360]
- ``astropy.wcs.UnitConverter``, which was deprecated in astropy
0.2, has been removed. Use the ``astropy.units`` module
instead. [#2386]
- The following methods on ``astropy.wcs.WCS``, which were
deprecated in astropy 0.1, have been removed [#2386]:
- ``all_pix2sky`` -> ``all_pix2world``
- ``wcs_pix2sky`` -> ``wcs_pix2world``
- ``wcs_sky2pix`` -> ``wcs_world2pix``
- The ``naxis1`` and ``naxis2`` attributes and the ``get_naxis``
method of ``astropy.wcs.WCS``, which were deprecated in astropy
0.2, have been removed. Use the shape of the underlying FITS data
array instead. [#2386]
- Misc
- The ``astropy.setup_helpers`` and ``astropy.version_helpers`` modules are
deprecated; any non-critical fixes and development to those modules should
be in ``astropy_helpers`` instead. Packages that use these modules in
their ``setup.py`` should depend on ``astropy_helpers`` following the same
pattern as in the Astropy package template.
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.constants``
- ``astropy.constants.Contant`` objects can now be deep
copied. [#2601]
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- The distance modulus function in ``astropy.cosmology`` can now handle
negative distances, which can occur in certain closed cosmologies. [#2008]
- Removed accidental imports of some extraneous variables in
``astropy.cosmology`` [#2025]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- ``astropy.io.ascii.read`` would fail to read lists of strings where some of
the strings consisted of just a newline ("\n"). [#2648]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Use NaN for missing values in FITS when using Table.write for float
columns. Earlier the default fill value was close to 1e20.[#2186]
- Fixes for checksums on 32-bit platforms. Results may be different
if writing or checking checksums in "nonstandard" mode. [#2484]
- Additional minor bug fixes ported from PyFITS. [#2575]
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- It is now possible to save an ``astropy.table.Table`` object as a
VOTable with any of the supported data formats, ``tabledata``,
``binary`` and ``binary2``, by using the ``tabledata_format``
kwarg. [#2138]
- Fixed a crash writing out variable length arrays. [#2577]
- ``astropy.nddata``
- Indexing ``NDData`` in a way that results in a single element returns that
element. [#2170]
- Change construction of result of arithmetic and unit conversion to allow
subclasses to require the presence of attribute like unit. [#2300]
- Scale uncertainties to correct units in arithmetic operations and unit
conversion. [#2393]
- Ensure uncertainty and mask members are copied in arithmetic and
convert_unit_to. [#2394]
- Mask result of arithmetic if either of the operands is masked. [#2403]
- Copy all attributes of input object if ``astropy.nddata.NDData`` is
initialized with an ``NDData`` object. [#2406]
- Copy ``flags`` to new object in ``convert_unit_to``. [#2409]
- Result of ``NDData`` arithmetic makes a copy of any WCS instead of using
a reference. [#2410]
- Fix unit handling for multiplication/division and use
``astropy.units.Quantity`` for units arithmetic. [#2413]
- A masked ``NDData`` is now converted to a masked array when used in an
operation or ufunc with a numpy array. [#2414]
- An unmasked ``NDData`` now uses an internal representation of its mask
state that ``numpy.ma`` expects so that an ``NDData`` behaves as an
unmasked array. [#2417]
- ``astropy.sphinx``
- Fix crash in smart resolver when the resolution doesn't work. [#2591]
- ``astropy.table``
- The ``astropy.table.Column`` object can now use both functions and callable
objects as formats. [#2313]
- Fixed a problem on 64 bit windows that caused errors
"expected 'DTYPE_t' but got 'long long'" [#2490]
- Fix initialisation of ``TableColumns`` with lists or tuples. [#2647]
- ``astropy.time``
- Correct UT1->UTC->UT1 round-trip being off by 1 second if UT1 is
on a leap second. [#2077]
- ``astropy.units``
- ``Quantity.copy`` now behaves identically to ``ndarray.copy``, and thus
supports the ``order`` argument (for numpy >=1.6). [#2284]
- Composing base units into identical composite units now works. [#2382]
- Creating and composing/decomposing units is now substantially faster [#2544]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Astropy now requires wcslib version 4.23 or later. The version of
wcslib included with astropy has been updated to version 4.23.
- Bug fixes in the projection routines: in ``hpxx2s`` [the
cartesian-to-spherical operation of the ``HPX`` projection]
relating to bounds checking, bug introduced at wcslib 4.20; in
``parx2s`` and molx2s`` [the cartesion-to-spherical operation of
the ``PAR`` and ``MOL`` projections respectively] relating to
setting the stat vector; in ``hpxx2s`` relating to implementation
of the vector API; and in ``xphx2s`` relating to setting an
out-of-bounds value of *phi*.
- In the ``PCO`` projection, use alternative projection equations
for greater numerical precision near theta == 0. In the ``COP``
projection, return an exact result for theta at the poles.
Relaxed the tolerance for bounds checking a little in ``SFL``
projection.
- Fix a bug allocating insufficient memory in
``astropy.wcs.WCS.sub`` [#2468]
- A new method, ``Wcsprm.bounds_check`` (corresponding to wcslib's
``wcsbchk``) has been added to control what bounds checking is performed by
wcslib.
- ``WCS.to_header`` will now raise a more meaningful exception when the WCS
information is invalid or inconsistent in some way. [#1854]
- In ``WCS.to_header``, ``RESTFRQ`` and ``RESTWAV`` are no longer
rewritten if zero. [#2468]
- In ``WCS.to_header``, floating point values will now always be written
with an exponent or fractional part, i.e. ``.0`` being appended if necessary
to acheive this. [#2468]
- If the C extension for ``astropy.wcs`` was not built or fails to import for
any reason, ``import astropy.wcs`` will result in an ``ImportError``,
rather than getting obscure errors once the ``astropy.wcs`` is used.
[#2061]
- When the C extension for ``astropy.wcs`` is built using a version of
``wscslib`` already present in the system, the package does not try
to install ``wcslib`` headers under ``astropy/wcs/include``. [#2536]
- Fixes an unresolved external symbol error in the
`astropy.wcs._wcs` C extension on Microsoft Windows when built
with a Microsoft compiler. [#2478]
- Misc
- Running the test suite with ``python setup.py test`` now works if
the path to the source contains spaces. [#2488]
- The version of ERFA included with Astropy is now v1.1.0 [#2497]
- Removed deprecated option from travis configuration and force use of
wheels rather than allowing build from source. [#2576]
- The short option ``-n`` to run tests in parallel was broken
(conflicts with the distutils built-in option of "dry-run").
Changed to ``-j``. [#2566]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- ``python setup.py test --coverage`` will now give more accurate
results, because the coverage analysis will include early imports of
astropy. There doesn't seem to be a way to get this to work when
doing ``import astropy; astropy.test()``, so the ``coverage``
keyword to ``astropy.test`` has been removed. Coverage testing now
depends only on `coverage.py
<http://nedbatchelder.com/code/coverage/>`__, not
``pytest-cov``. [#2112]
- The included version of py.test has been upgraded to 2.5.1. [#1970]
- The included version of six.py has been upgraded to 1.5.2. [#2006]
- Where appropriate, tests are now run both with and without the
``unicode_literals`` option to ensure that we support both cases. [#1962]
- Added support for numerical comparison of floating point values appearing in
the output of doctests using a ``+FLOAT_CMP`` doctest flag. [#2087]
- A monkey patch is performed to fix a bug in Numpy version 1.7 and
earlier where unicode fill values on masked arrays are not
supported. This may cause unintended side effects if your
application also monkey patches ``numpy.ma`` or relies on the broken
behavior. If unicode support of masked arrays is important to your
application, upgrade to Numpy 1.8 or later for best results. [#2059]
- The developer documentation has been extensively rearranged and
rewritten. [#1712]
- The ``human_time`` function in ``astropy.utils`` now returns strings
without zero padding. [#2420]
- The ``bdist_dmg`` command for ``setup.py`` has now been removed. [#2553]
- Many broken API links have been fixed in the documentation, and the
``nitpick`` Sphinx option is now used to avoid broken links in future.
[#1221, #2019, #2109, #2161, #2162, #2192, #2200, #2296, #2448, #2456,
#2460, #2467, #2476, #2508, #2509]
0.3.2 (2014-05-13)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- if ``sep`` argument is specified to be a single character in
``sexagisimal_to_string``, it now includes seperators only between
items [#2183]
- Ensure comparisons involving ``Distance`` objects do not raise exceptions;
also ensure operations that lead to units other than length return
``Quantity``. [#2206, #2250]
- Multiplication and division of ``Angle`` objects is now
supported. [#2273]
- Fixed ``Angle.to_string`` functionality so that negative angles have the
correct amount of padding when ``pad=True``. [#2337]
- Mixing strings and quantities in the ``Angle`` constructor now
works. For example: ``Angle(['1d', 1. * u.d])``. [#2398]
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- Fixed ``format()`` compatibility with Python 2.6. [#2129]
- Be more careful about converting to floating point internally [#1815, #1818]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- The CDS reader in ``astropy.io.ascii`` can now handle multiple
description lines in ReadMe files. [#2225]
- When reading a table with values that generate an overflow error during
type conversion (e.g. overflowing the native C long type), fall through to
using string. Previously this generated an exception [#2234].
- Some CDS files mark missing values with ``"---"``, others with ``"--"``.
Recognize any string with one to four dashes as null value. [#1335]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Allow pickling of ``FITS_rec`` objects. [#1597]
- Improved behavior when writing large compressed images on OSX by removing
an unncessary check for platform architecture. [#2345]
- Fixed an issue where Astropy ``Table`` objects containing boolean columns
were not correctly written out to FITS files. [#1953]
- Several other bug fixes ported from PyFITS v3.2.3 [#2368]
- Fixed a crash on Python 2.x when writing a FITS file directly to a
``StringIO.StringIO`` object. [#2463]
- ``astropy.io.registry``
- Allow readers/writers with the same name to be attached to different
classes. [#2312]
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- By default, floating point values are now written out using
``repr`` rather than ``str`` to preserve precision [#2137]
- ``astropy.modeling``
- Fixed the ``SIP`` and ``InverseSIP`` models both so that they work in the
first place, and so that they return results consistent with the SIP
functions in ``astropy.wcs``. [#2177]
- ``astropy.stats``
- Ensure the ``axis`` keyword in ``astropy.stats.funcs`` can now be used for
all axes. [#2173]
- ``astropy.table``
- Ensure nameless columns can be printed, using 'None' for the header. [#2213]
- ``astropy.time``
- Fixed pickling of ``Time`` objects. [#2123]
- ``astropy.units``
- ``Quantity._repr_latex_()`` returns ``NotImplementedError`` for quantity
arrays instead of an uninformative formatting exception. [#2258]
- Ensure ``Quantity.flat`` always returns ``Quantity``. [#2251]
- Angstrom unit renders better in MathJax [#2286]
- ``astropy.utils``
- Progress bars will now be displayed inside the IPython
qtconsole. [#2230]
- ``data.download_file()`` now evaluates ``REMOTE_TIMEOUT()`` at runtime
rather than import time. Previously, setting ``REMOTE_TIMEOUT`` after
import had no effect on the function's behavior. [#2302]
- Progressbar will be limited to 100% so that the bar does not exceed the
terminal width. The numerical display can still exceed 100%, however.
- ``astropy.vo``
- Fixed ``format()`` compatibility with Python 2.6. [#2129]
- Cone Search validation no longer raises ``ConeSearchError`` for positive RA.
[#2240, #2242]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Fixed a bug where calling ``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.sub`` with
``WCSSUB_CELESTIAL`` may cause memory corruption due to
underallocation of a temporary buffer. [#2350]
- Fixed a memory allocation bug in ``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.sub`` and
``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.copy``. [#2439]
- Misc
- Fixes for compatibility with Python 3.4. [#1945]
- ``import astropy; astropy.test()`` now correctly uses the same test
configuration as ``python setup.py test`` [#1811]
0.3.1 (2014-03-04)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.config``
- Fixed a bug where ``ConfigurationItem.set_temp()`` does not reset to
default value when exception is raised within ``with`` block. [#2117]
- ``astropy.convolution``
- Fixed a bug where ``_truncation`` was left undefined for ``CustomKernel``.
[#2016]
- Fixed a bug with ``_normalization`` when ``CustomKernel`` input array
sums to zero. [#2016]
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- Fixed a bug where using ``==`` on two array coordinates wouldn't
work. [#1832]
- Fixed bug which caused ``len()`` not to work for coordinate objects and
added a ``.shape`` property to get appropriately array-like behavior.
[#1761, #2014]
- Fixed a bug where sexagesimal notation would sometimes include
exponential notation in the last field. [#1908, #1913]
- ``CompositeStaticMatrixTransform`` no longer attempts to reference the
undefined variable ``self.matrix`` during instantiation. [#1944]
- Fixed pickling of ``Longitude``, ensuring ``wrap_angle`` is preserved
[#1961]
- Allow ``sep`` argument in ``Angle.to_string`` to be empty (resulting in no
separators) [#1989]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- Allow passing unicode delimiters when reading or writing tables. The
delimiter must be convertible to pure ASCII. [#1949]
- Fix a problem when reading a table and renaming the columns to names that
already exist. [#1991]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Ported all bug fixes from PyFITS 3.2.1. See the PyFITS changelog at
http://pyfits.readthedocs.org/en/v3.2.1/ [#2056]
- ``astropy.io.misc``
- Fixed issues in the HDF5 Table reader/writer functions that occurred on
Windows. [#2099]
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- The ``write_null_values`` kwarg to ``VOTable.to_xml``, when set to `False`
(the default) would produce non-standard VOTable files. Therefore, this
functionality has been replaced by a better understanding that knows which
fields in a VOTable may be left empty (only ``char``, ``float`` and
``double`` in VOTable 1.1 and 1.2, and all fields in VOTable 1.3). The
kwarg is still accepted but it will be ignored, and a warning is emitted.
[#1809]
- Printing out a ``astropy.io.votable.tree.Table`` object using `repr` or
`str` now uses the pretty formatting in ``astropy.table``, so it's possible
to easily preview the contents of a ``VOTable``. [#1766]
- ``astropy.modeling``
- Fixed bug in computation of model derivatives in ``LinearLSQFitter``.
[#1903]
- Raise a ``NotImplementedError`` when fitting composite models. [#1915]
- Fixed bug in the computation of the ``Gaussian2D`` model. [#2038]
- Fixed bug in the computation of the ``AiryDisk2D`` model. [#2093]
- ``astropy.sphinx``
- Added slightly more useful debug info for AstropyAutosummary. [#2024]
- ``astropy.table``
- The column string representation for n-dimensional cells with only
one element has been fixed. [#1522]
- Fix a problem that caused ``MaskedColumn.__getitem__`` to not preserve
column metadata. [#1471, #1872]
- With Numpy prior to version 1.6.2, tables with Unicode columns now
sort correctly. [#1867]
- ``astropy.table`` can now print out tables with Unicode columns containing
non-ascii characters. [#1864]
- Columns can now be named with Unicode strings, as long as they contain only
ascii characters. This makes using ``astropy.table`` easier on Python 2
when ``from __future__ import unicode_literals`` is used. [#1864]
- Allow pickling of ``Table``, ``Column``, and ``MaskedColumn`` objects. [#792]
- Fix a problem where it was not possible to rename columns after sorting or
adding a row. [#2039]
- ``astropy.time``
- Fix a problem where scale conversion problem in TimeFromEpoch
was not showing a useful error [#2046]
- Fix a problem when converting to one of the formats ``unix``, ``cxcsec``,
``gps`` or ``plot_date`` when the time scale is ``UT1``, ``TDB`` or ``TCB``
[#1732]
- Ensure that ``delta_ut1_utc`` gets calculated when accessed directly,
instead of failing and giving a rather obscure error message [#1925]
- Fix a bug when computing the TDB to TT offset. The transform routine was
using meters instead of kilometers for the Earth vector. [#1929]
- Increase ``__array_priority__`` so that ``TimeDelta`` can convert itself
to a ``Quantity`` also in reverse operations [#1940]
- Correct hop list from TCG to TDB to ensure that conversion is
possible [#2074]
- ``astropy.units``
- ``Quantity`` initialisation rewritten for speed [#1775]
- Fixed minor string formatting issue for dimensionless quantities. [#1772]
- Fix error for inplace operations on non-contiguous quantities [#1834].
- The definition of the unit ``bar`` has been corrected to "1e5
Pascal" from "100 Pascal" [#1910]
- For units that are close to known units, but not quite, for
example due to differences in case, the exception will now include
recommendations. [#1870]
- The generic and FITS unit parsers now accept multiple slashes in
the unit string. There are multiple ways to interpret them, but
the approach taken here is to convert "m/s/kg" to "m s-1 kg-1".
Multiple slashes are accepted, but discouraged, by the FITS
standard, due to the ambiguity of parsing, so a warning is raised
when it is encountered. [#1911]
- The use of "angstrom" (with a lower case "a") is now accepted in FITS unit
strings, since it is in common usage. However, since it is not officially
part of the FITS standard, a warning will be issued when it is encountered.
[#1911]
- Pickling unrecognized units will not raise a ``AttributeError``. [#2047]
- ``astropy.units`` now correctly preserves the precision of
fractional powers. [#2070]
- If a ``Unit`` or ``Quantity`` is raised to a floating point power
that is very close to a rational number with a denominator less
than or equal to 10, it is converted to a ``Fraction`` object to
preserve its precision through complex unit conversion operations.
[#2070]
- ``astropy.utils``
- Fixed crash in ``timer.RunTimePredictor.do_fit``. [#1905]
- Fixed ``astropy.utils.compat.argparse`` for Python 3.1. [#2017]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- ``astropy.wcs.WCS``, ``astropy.wcs.WCS.fix`` and
``astropy.wcs.find_all_wcs`` now have a ``translate_units`` keyword
argument that is passed down to ``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.fix``. This can be
used to specify any unsafe translations of units from rarely used ones to
more commonly used ones.
Although ``"S"`` is commonly used to represent seconds, its translation to
``"s"`` is potentially unsafe since the standard recognizes ``"S"``
formally as Siemens, however rarely that may be used. The same applies to
``"H"`` for hours (Henry), and ``"D"`` for days (Debye).
When these sorts of changes are performed, a warning is emitted.
[#1854]
- When a unit is "fixed" by ``astropy.wcs.WCS.fix`` or
``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.unitfix``, it now correctly reports the ``CUNIT``
field that was changed. [#1854]
- ``astropy.wcs.Wcs.printwcs`` will no longer warn that ``cdelt`` is being
ignored when none was present in the FITS file. [#1845]
- ``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm.set`` is called from within the ``astropy.wcs.WCS``
constructor, therefore any invalid information in the keywords will be
raised from the constructor, rather than on a subsequent call to a
transformation method. [#1918]
- Fix a memory corruption bug when using ``astropy.wcs.Wcs.sub`` with
``astropy.wcs.WCSSUB_CELESTIAL``. [#1960]
- Fixed the ``AttributeError`` exception that was raised when using
``astropy.wcs.WCS.footprint_to_file``. [#1912]
- Fixed a ``NameError`` exception that was raised when using
``astropy.wcs.validate`` or the ``wcslint`` script. [#2053]
- Fixed a bug where named WCSes may be erroneously reported as ``' '`` when
using ``astropy.wcs.validate`` or the ``wcslint`` script. [#2053]
- Fixed a bug where error messages about incorrect header keywords
may not be propagated correctly, resulting in a "NULL error object
in wcslib" message. [#2106]
- Misc
- There are a number of improvements to make Astropy work better on big
endian platforms, such as MIPS, PPC, s390x and SPARC. [#1849]
- The test suite will now raise exceptions when a deprecated feature of
Python or Numpy is used. [#1948]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- A new function, ``astropy.wcs.get_include``, has been added to get the
location of the ``astropy.wcs`` C header files. [#1755]
- The doctests in the ``.rst`` files in the ``docs`` folder are now
tested along with the other unit tests. This is in addition to the
testing of doctests in docstrings that was already being performed.
See ``docs/development/testguide.rst`` for more information. [#1771]
- Fix a problem where import fails on Python 3 if setup.py exists
in current directory. [#1877]
0.3 (2013-11-20)
----------------
New Features
^^^^^^^^^^^^
- General
- A top-level configuration item, ``unicode_output`` has been added to
control whether the Unicode string representation of certain
objects will contain Unicode characters. For example, when
``use_unicode`` is `False` (default)::
>>> from astropy import units as u
>>> print(unicode(u.degree))
deg
When ``use_unicode`` is `True`::
>>> from astropy import units as u
>>> print(unicode(u.degree))
°
See `handling-unicode
<http://docs.astropy.org/en/v0.3/development/codeguide.html#unicode-guidelines>`_
for more information. [#1441]
- ``astropy.utils.misc.find_api_page`` is now imported into the top-level.
This allows usage like ``astropy.find_api_page(astropy.units.Quantity)``.
[#1779]
- ``astropy.convolution``
- New class-based system for generating kernels, replacing ``make_kernel``.
[#1255] The ``astropy.nddata.convolution`` sub-package has now been moved
to ``astropy.convolution``. [#1451]
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- Two classes ``astropy.coordinates.Longitude`` and
``astropy.coordinates.Latitude`` have been added. These are derived from
the new ``Angle`` class and used for all longitude-like (RA, azimuth,
galactic L) and latitude-like coordinates (Dec, elevation, galactic B)
respectively. The ``Longitude`` class provides auto-wrapping capability
and ``Latitude`` performs bounds checking.
- ``astropy.coordinates.Distance`` supports conversion to and from distance
modulii. [#1472]
- ``astropy.coordinates.SphericalCoordinateBase`` and derived classes now
support arrays of coordinates, enabling large speed-ups for some operations
on multiple coordinates at the same time. These coordinates can also be
indexed using standard slicing or any Numpy-compatible indexing. [#1535,
#1615]
- Array coordinates can be matched to other array coordinates, finding the
closest matches between the two sets of coordinates (see the
``astropy.coordinates.matching.match_coordinates_3d`` and
``astropy.coordinates.matching.match_coordinates_sky`` functions). [#1535]
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- Added support for including massive Neutrinos in the cosmology classes. The
Planck (2013) cosmology has been updated to use this. [#1364]
- Calculations now use and return ``Quantity`` objects where appropriate.
[#1237]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- Added support for writing IPAC format tables [#1152].
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Added initial support for table columns containing pseudo-unsigned
integers. This is currently enabled by using the ``uint=True`` option when
opening files; any table columns with the correct BZERO value will be
interpreted and returned as arrays of unsigned integers. [#906]
- Upgraded vendored copy of CFITSIO to v3.35, though backwards compatibility
back to version v3.28 is maintained.
- Added support for reading and writing tables using the Q format for columns.
The Q format is identical to the P format (variable-length arrays) except
that it uses 64-bit integers for the data descriptors, allowing more than
4 GB of variable-length array data in a single table.
- Some refactoring of the table and ``FITS_rec`` modules in order to better
separate the details of the FITS binary and ASCII table data structures from
the HDU data structures that encapsulate them. Most of these changes should
not be apparent to users (but see API Changes below).
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- Updated to support the VOTable 1.3 draft. [#433]
- Added the ability to look up and group elements by their utype attribute.
[#622]
- The format of the units of a VOTable file can be specified using the
``unit_format`` parameter. Note that units are still always written out
using the CDS format, to ensure compatibility with the standard.
- ``astropy.modeling``
- Added a new framework for representing and evaluating mathematical models
and for fitting data to models. See "What's New in Astropy 0.3" in the
documentation for further details. [#493]
- ``astropy.stats``
- Added robust statistics functions
``astropy.stats.funcs.median_absolute_deviation``,
``astropy.stats.funcs.biweight_location``, and
``astropy.stats.funcs.biweight_midvariance``. [#621]
- Added ``astropy.stats.funcs.signal_to_noise_oir_ccd`` for computing the
signal to noise ratio for source being observed in the optical/IR using a
CCD. [#870]
- Add ``axis=int`` option to ``stropy.stats.funcs.sigma_clip`` to allow
clipping along a given axis for multidimensional data. [#1083]
- ``astropy.table``
- New columns can be added to a table via assignment to a non-existing
column by name. [#726]
- Added ``join`` function to perform a database-like join on two tables. This
includes support for inner, left, right, and outer joins as well as
metadata merging. [#903]
- Added ``hstack`` and ``vstack`` functions to stack two or more tables.
[#937]
- Tables now have a ``.copy`` method and include support for ``copy`` and
``deepcopy``. [#1208]
- Added support for selecting and manipulating groups within a table with
a database style ``group_by`` method. [#1424]
- Table ``read`` and ``write`` functions now include rudimentary support
reading and writing of FITS tables via the unified reading/writing
interface. [#591]
- The ``units`` and ``dtypes`` attributes and keyword arguments in Column,
MaskedColumn, Row, and Table are now deprecated in favor of the
single-tense ``unit`` and ``dtype``. [#1174]
- Setting a column from a Quantity now correctly sets the unit on the Column
object. [#732]
- Add ``remove_row`` and ``remove_rows`` to remove table rows. [#1230]
- Added a new ``Table.show_in_browser`` method that opens a web browser
and displays the table rendered as HTML. [#1342]
- New tables can now be instantiated using a single row from an existing
table. [#1417]
- ``astropy.time``
- New ``Time`` objects can be instantiated from existing ``Time`` objects
(but with different format, scale, etc.) [#889]
- Added a ``Time.now`` classmethod that returns the current UTC time,
similarly to Python's ``datetime.now``. [#1061]
- Update internal time manipulations so that arithmetic with Time and
TimeDelta objects maintains sub-nanosecond precision over a time span
longer than the age of the universe. [#1189]
- Use ``astropy.utils.iers`` to provide ``delta_ut1_utc``, so that
automatic calculation of UT1 becomes possible. [#1145]
- Add ``datetime`` format which allows converting to and from standard
library ``datetime.datetime`` objects. [#860]
- Add ``plot_date`` format which allows converting to and from the date
representation used when plotting dates with matplotlib via the
``matplotlib.pyplot.plot_date`` function. [#860]
- Add ``gps`` format (seconds since 1980-01-01 00:00:00 UTC,
including leap seconds) [#1164]
- Add array indexing to Time objects [#1132]
- Allow for arithmetic of multi-element and single-element Time and TimeDelta
objects. [#1081]
- Allow multiplication and division of TimeDelta objects by
constants and arrays, as well as changing sign (negation) and
taking the absolute value of TimeDelta objects. [#1082]
- Allow comparisons of Time and TimeDelta objects. [#1171]
- Support interaction of Time and Quantity objects that represent a time
interval. [#1431]
- ``astropy.units``
- Added parallax equivalency for length-angle. [#985]
- Added mass-energy equivalency. [#1333]
- Added a new-style format method which will use format specifiers
(like ``0.03f``) in new-style format strings for the Quantity's value.
Specifiers which can't be applied to the value will fall back to the
entire string representation of the quantity. [#1383]
- Added support for complex number values in quantities. [#1384]
- Added new spectroscopic equivalencies for velocity conversions
(relativistic, optical, and radio conventions are supported) [#1200]
- The ``spectral`` equivalency now also handles wave number.
- The ``spectral_density`` equivalency now also accepts a Quantity for the
frequency or wavelength. It also handles additional flux units.
- Added Brightness Temperature (antenna gain) equivalency for conversion
between :math:`T_B` and flux density. [#1327]
- Added percent unit, and allowed any string containing just a number to be
interpreted as a scaled dimensionless unit. [#1409]
- New-style format strings can be used to set the unit output format. For
example, ``"{0:latex}".format(u.km)`` will print with the latex formatter.
[#1462]
- The ``Unit.is_equivalent`` method can now take a tuple. In this case, the
method returns ``True`` if the unit is equivalent to any of the units
listed in the tuple. [#1521]
- ``def_unit`` can now take a 2-tuple of names of the form (short, long),
where each entry is a list. This allows for handling strange units that
might have multiple short names. [#1543]
- Added ``dimensionless_angles`` equivalency, which allows conversion of any
power of radian to dimensionless. [#1161]
- Added the ability to enable set of units, or equivalencies that are used by
default. Also provided context managers for these cases. [#1268]
- Imperial units are disabled by default. [#1593, #1662]
- Added an ``astropy.units.add_enabled_units`` context manager, which allows
creating a temporary context with additional units temporarily enabled in
the global units namespace. [#1662]
- ``Unit`` instances now have ``.si`` and ``.cgs`` properties a la
``Quantity``. These serve as shortcuts for ``Unit.to_system(cgs)[0]``
etc. [#1610]
- ``astropy.vo``
- New package added to support Virtual Observatory Simple Cone Search query
and service validation. [#552]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Fixed attribute error in ``astropy.wcs.Wcsprm`` (lattype->lattyp) [#1463]
- Included a new command-line script called ``wcslint`` and accompanying API
for validating the WCS in a given FITS file or header. [#580]
- Upgraded included version of WCSLIB to 4.19.
- ``astropy.utils``
- Added a new set of utilities in ``astropy.utils.timer`` for analyzing the
runtime of functions and making runtime predections for larger inputs.
[#743]
- ``ProgressBar`` and ``Spinner`` classes can now be used directly to return
generator expressions. [#771]
- Added ``astropy.utils.iers`` which allows reading in of IERS A or IERS B
bulletins and interpolation in UT1-UTC.
- Added a function ``astropy.utils.find_api_page``--given a class or object
from the ``astropy`` package, this will open that class's API documentation
in a web browser. [#663]
- Data download functions such as ``download_file`` now accept a
``show_progress`` argument to suppress console output, and a ``timeout``
argument. [#865, #1258]
- ``astropy.extern.six``
- Added `six <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/six/>`_ for python2/python3
compatibility
- Astropy now uses the ERFA library instead of the IAU SOFA library for
fundamental time transformation routines. The ERFA library is derived, with
permission, from the IAU SOFA library but is distributed under a BSD license.
See ``license/ERFA.rst`` for details. [#1293]
- ``astropy.logger``
- The Astropy logger now no longer catches exceptions by default, and also
only captures warnings emitted by Astropy itself (prior to this change,
following an import of Astropy, any warning got re-directed through the
Astropy logger). Logging to the Astropy log file has also been disabled by
default. However, users of Astropy 0.2 will likely still see the previous
behavior with Astropy 0.3 for exceptions and logging to file since the
default configuration file installed by 0.2 set the exception logging to be
on by default. To get the new behavior, set the ``log_exceptions`` and
``log_to_file`` configuration items to ``False`` in the ``astropy.cfg``
file. [#1331]
API Changes
^^^^^^^^^^^
- General
- The configuration option ``utils.console.use_unicode`` has been
moved to the top level and renamed to ``unicode_output``. It now
not only affects console widgets, such as progress bars, but also
controls whether calling `unicode` on certain classes will return a
string containing unicode characters.
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- The ``astropy.coordinates.Angle`` class is now a subclass of
``astropy.units.Quantity``. This means it has all of the methods of a
`numpy.ndarray`. [#1006]
- The ``astropy.coordinates.Distance`` class is now a subclass of
``astropy.units.Quantity``. This means it has all of the methods of a
`numpy.ndarray`. [#1472]
- All angular units are now supported, not just ``radian``, ``degree`` and
``hour``, but now ``arcsecond`` and ``arcminute`` as well. The object
will retain its native unit, so when printing out a value initially
provided in hours, its ``to_string()`` will, by default, also be
expressed in hours.
- The ``Angle`` class now supports arrays of angles.
- To be consistent with ``units.Unit``, ``Angle.format`` has been
deprecated and renamed to ``Angle.to_string``.
- To be consistent with ``astropy.units``, all plural forms of unit names
have been removed. Therefore, the following properties of
``astropy.coordinates.Angle`` should be renamed:
- ``radians`` -> ``radian``
- ``degrees`` -> ``degree``
- ``hours`` -> ``hour``
- Multiplication and division of two ``Angle`` objects used to raise
``NotImplementedError``. Now they raise ``TypeError``.
- The ``astropy.coordinates.Angle`` class no longer has a ``bounds``
attribute so there is no bounds-checking or auto-wrapping at this level.
This allows ``Angle`` objects to be used in arbitrary arithmetic
expressions (e.g. coordinate distance computation).
- The ``astropy.coordinates.RA`` and ``astropy.coordinates.Dec`` classes have
been removed and replaced with ``astropy.coordinates.Longitude`` and
``astropy.coordinates.Latitude`` respectively. These are now used for the
components of Galactic and Horizontal (Alt-Az) coordinates as well instead
of plain ``Angle`` objects.
- ``astropy.coordinates.angles.rotation_matrix`` and
``astropy.coordinates.angles.angle_axis`` now take a ``unit`` kwarg instead
of ``degrees`` kwarg to specify the units of the angles.
``rotation_matrix`` will also take the unit from the given ``Angle`` object
if no unit is provided.
- The ``AngularSeparation`` class has been removed. The output of the
coordinates ``separation()`` method is now an
``astropy.coordinates.Angle``. [#1007]
- The coordinate classes have been renamed in a way that remove the
``Coordinates`` at the end of the class names. E.g., ``ICRSCoordinates``
from previous versions is now called ``ICRS``. [#1614]
- ``HorizontalCoordinates`` are now named ``AltAz``, to reflect more common
terminology.
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- The Planck (2013) cosmology will likely give slightly different (and more
accurate) results due to the inclusion of Neutrino masses. [#1364]
- Cosmology class properties now return ``Quantity`` objects instead of
simple floating-point values. [#1237]
- The names of cosmology instances are now truly optional, and are set to
``None`` rather than the name of the class if the user does not provide
them. [#1705]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- In the ``read`` method of ``astropy.io.ascii``, empty column values in an
ASCII table are now treated as missing values instead of the previous
treatment as a zero-length string "". This now corresponds to the behavior
of other table readers like ``numpy.genfromtxt``. To restore the previous
behavior set ``fill_values=None`` in the call to ``ascii.read()``. [#919]
- The ``read`` and ``write`` methods of ``astropy.io.ascii`` now have a
``format`` argument for specifying the file format. This is the preferred
way to choose the format instead of the ``Reader`` and ``Writer``
arguments. [#961]
- The ``include_names`` and ``exclude_names`` arguments were removed from
the ``BaseHeader`` initializer, and now instead handled by the reader and
writer classes directly. [#1350]
- Allow numeric and otherwise unusual column names when reading a table
where the ``format`` argument is specified, but other format details such
as the delimiter or quote character are being guessed. [#1692]
- When reading an ASCII table using the ``Table.read()`` method, the default
has changed from ``guess=False`` to ``guess=True`` to allow auto-detection
of file format. This matches the default behavior of ``ascii.read()``.
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- The ``astropy.io.fits.new_table`` function is marked "pending deprecation".
This does not mean it will be removed outright or that its functionality
has changed. It will likely be replaced in the future for a function with
similar, if not subtly different functionality. A better, if not slightly
more verbose approach is to use ``pyfits.FITS_rec.from_columns`` to create
a new ``FITS_rec`` table--this has the same interface as
``pyfits.new_table``. The difference is that it returns a plan
``FITS_rec`` array, and not an HDU instance. This ``FITS_rec`` object can
then be used as the data argument in the constructors for ``BinTableHDU``
(for binary tables) or ``TableHDU`` (for ASCII tables). This is analogous
to creating an ``ImageHDU`` by passing in an image array.
``pyfits.FITS_rec.from_columns`` is just a simpler way of creating a
FITS-compatible recarray from a FITS column specification.
- The ``updateHeader``, ``updateHeaderData``, and ``updateCompressedData``
methods of the ``CompDataHDU`` class are pending deprecation and moved to
internal methods. The operation of these methods depended too much on
internal state to be used safely by users; instead they are invoked
automatically in the appropriate places when reading/writing compressed
image HDUs.
- The ``CompDataHDU.compData`` attribute is pending deprecation in favor of
the clearer and more PEP-8 compatible ``CompDataHDU.compressed_data``.
- The constructor for ``CompDataHDU`` has been changed to accept new keyword
arguments. The new keyword arguments are essentially the same, but are in
underscore_separated format rather than camelCase format. The old
arguments are still pending deprecation.
- The internal attributes of HDU classes ``_hdrLoc``, ``_datLoc``, and
``_datSpan`` have been replaced with ``_header_offset``, ``_data_offset``,
and ``_data_size`` respectively. The old attribute names are still pending
deprecation. This should only be of interest to advanced users who have
created their own HDU subclasses.
- The following previously deprecated functions and methods have been removed
entirely: ``createCard``, ``createCardFromString``, ``upperKey``,
``ColDefs.data``, ``setExtensionNameCaseSensitive``, ``_File.getfile``,
``_TableBaseHDU.get_coldefs``, ``Header.has_key``, ``Header.ascardlist``.
- Interfaces that were pending deprecation are now fully deprecated. These
include: ``create_card``, ``create_card_from_string``, ``upper_key``,
``Header.get_history``, and ``Header.get_comment``.
- The ``.name`` attribute on HDUs is now directly tied to the HDU's header, so
that if ``.header['EXTNAME']`` changes so does ``.name`` and vice-versa.
- ``astropy.io.registry``
- Identifier functions for reading/writing Table and NDData objects should
now accept ``(origin, *args, **kwargs)`` instead of ``(origin, args,
kwargs)``. [#591]
- Added a new ``astropy.io.registry.get_formats`` function for listing
registered I/O formats and details about the their readers/writers. [#1669]
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- Added a new option ``use_names_over_ids`` option to use when converting
from VOTable objects to Astropy Tables. This can prevent a situation where
column names are not preserved when converting from a VOTable. [#609]
- ``astropy.nddata``
- The ``astropy.nddata.convolution`` sub-package has now been moved to
``astropy.convolution``, and the ``make_kernel`` function has been removed.
(the kernel classes should be used instead) [#1451]
- ``astropy.stats.funcs``
- For ``sigma_clip``, the ``maout`` optional parameter has been removed, and
the function now always returns a masked array. A new boolean parameter
``copy`` can be used to indicated whether the input data should be copied
(``copy=True``, default) or used by reference (``copy=False``) in the
output masked array. [#1083]
- ``astropy.table``
- The first argument to the ``Column`` and ``MaskedColumn`` classes is now
the data array--the ``name`` argument has been changed to an optional
keyword argument. [#840]
- Added support for instantiating a ``Table`` from a list of dict, each one
representing a single row with the keys mapping to column names. [#901]
- The plural 'units' and 'dtypes' have been switched to 'unit' and 'dtype'
where appropriate. The original attributes are still present in this
version as deprecated attributes, but will be removed in the next version.
[#1174]
- The ``copy`` methods of ``Column`` and ``MaskedColumn`` were changed so
that the first argument is now ``order='C'``. This is required for
compatibility with Numpy 1.8 which is currently in development. [#1250]
- Comparing a column (with == or !=) to a scalar, an array, or another column
now always returns a boolean Numpy array (which is a masked array if either
of the arguments in the comparison was masked). This is in contrast to the
previous behavior, which in some cases returned a boolean Numpy array, and
in some cases returned a boolean Column object. [#1446]
- ``astropy.time``
- For consistency with ``Quantity``, the attributes ``val`` and
``is_scalar`` have been renamed to ``value`` and ``isscalar``,
respectively, and the attribute ``vals`` has been dropped. [#767]
- The double-float64 internal representation of time is used more
efficiently to enable better accuracy. [#366]
- Format and scale arguments are now allowed to be case-insensitive. [#1128]
- ``astropy.units``
- The ``Quantity`` class now inherits from the Numpy array class, and
includes the following API changes [#929]:
- Using ``float(...)``, ``int(...)``, and ``long(...)`` on a quantity will
now only work if the quantity is dimensionless and unscaled.
- All Numpy ufuncs should now treat units correctly (or raise an exception
if not supported), rather than extract the value of quantities and
operate on this, emitting a warning about the implicit loss of units.
- When using relevant Numpy ufuncs on dimensionless quantities (e.g.
``np.exp(h * nu / (k_B * T))``), or combining dimensionless quantities
with Python scalars or plain Numpy arrays ``1 + v / c``, the
dimensionless Quantity will automatically be converted to an unscaled
dimensionless Quantity.
- When initializing a quantity from a value with no unit, it is now set to
be dimensionless and unscaled by default. When initializing a Quantity
from another Quantity and with no unit specified in the initializer, the
unit is now taken from the unit of the Quantity being initialized from.
- Strings are no longer allowed as the values for Quantities. [#1005]
- Quantities are always comparable with zero regardless of their units.
[#1254]
- The exception ``astropy.units.UnitsException`` has been renamed to
``astropy.units.UnitsError`` to be more consistent with the naming
of built-in Python exceptions. [#1406]
- Multiplication with and division by a string now always returns a Unit
(rather than a Quantity when the string was first) [#1408]
- Imperial units are disabled by default.
- ``astropy.wcs``
- For those including the ``astropy.wcs`` C headers in their project, they
should now include it as:
#include "astropy_wcs/astropy_wcs_api.h"
instead of:
#include "astropy_wcs_api.h"
[#1631]
- The ``--enable-legacy`` option for ``setup.py`` has been removed. [#1493]
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- The ``write()`` function was ignoring the ``fill_values`` argument. [#910]
- Fixed an issue in ``DefaultSplitter.join`` where the delimiter attribute
was ignored when writing the CSV. [#1020]
- Fixed writing of IPAC tables containing null values. [#1366]
- When a table with no header row was read without specifying the format and
using the ``names`` argument, then the first row could be dropped. [#1692]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Binary tables containing compressed images may, optionally, contain other
columns unrelated to the tile compression convention. Although this is an
uncommon use case, it is permitted by the standard.
- Reworked some of the file I/O routines to allow simpler, more consistent
mapping between OS-level file modes ('rb', 'wb', 'ab', etc.) and the more
"PyFITS-specific" modes used by PyFITS like "readonly" and "update". That
is, if reading a FITS file from an open file object, it doesn't matter as
much what "mode" it was opened in so long as it has the right capabilities
(read/write/etc.) Also works around bugs in the Python io module in 2.6+
with regard to file modes.
- Fixed a long-standing issue where writing binary tables did not correctly
write the TFORMn keywords for variable-length array columns (they omitted
the max array length parameter of the format). This was thought fixed in
an earlier version, but it was only fixed for compressed image HDUs and
not for binary tables in general.
- ``astropy.nddata``
- Fixed crash when trying to multiple or divide ``NDData`` objects with
uncertainties. [#1547]
- ``astropy.table``
- Using a list of strings to index a table now correctly returns a new table
with the columns named in the list. [#1454]
- Inequality operators now work properly with ``Column`` objects. [#1685]
- ``astropy.time``
- ``Time`` scale and format attributes are now shown when calling ``dir()``
on a ``Time`` object. [#1130]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Fixed assignment to string-like WCS attributes on Python 3. [#956]
- ``astropy.units``
- Fixed a bug that caused the order of multiplication/division of plain
Numpy arrays with Quantities to matter (i.e. if the plain array comes
first the units were not preserved in the output). [#899]
- Directly instantiated ``CompositeUnits`` were made printable without
crashing. [#1576]
- Misc
- Fixed various modules that hard-coded ``sys.stdout`` as default arguments
to functions at import time, rather than using the runtime value of
``sys.stdout``. [#1648]
- Minor documentation fixes and enhancements [#922, #1034, #1210, #1217,
#1491, #1492, #1498, #1582, #1608, #1621, #1646, #1670, #1756]
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when running the test suite on
systems with platform names containing non-ASCII characters. [#1698]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- General
- Astropy now follows the PSF Code of Conduct. [#1216]
- Astropy's test suite now tests all doctests in inline docstrings. Support
for running doctests in the reST documentation is planned to follow in
v0.3.1.
- Astropy's test suite can be run on multiple CPUs in parallel, often
greatly improving runtime, using the ``--parallel`` option. [#1040]
- A warning is now issued when using Astropy with Numpy < 1.5--much of
Astropy may still work in this case but it shouldn't be expected to
either. [#1479]
- Added automatic download/build/installation of Numpy during Astropy
installation if not already found. [#1483]
- Handling of metadata for the ``NDData`` and ``Table`` classes has been
unified by way of a common ``MetaData`` descriptor--it allows instantiating
an object with metadata of any mapping type, and subsequently prevents
replacing the mapping stored in the ``.meta`` attribute (only direct
updates to that object are allowed). [#1686]
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- Angles containing out of bounds minutes or seconds (eg. 60) can be
parsed--the value modulo 60 is used with carry to the hours/minutes, and a
warning is issued rather than raising an exception. [#990]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- The new compression code also adds support for the ZQUANTIZ and ZDITHER0
keywords added in more recent versions of this FITS Tile Compression spec.
This includes support for lossless compression with GZIP. (#198) By default
no dithering is used, but the ``SUBTRACTIVE_DITHER_1`` and
``SUBTRACTIVE_DITHER_2`` methods can be enabled by passing the correct
constants to the ``quantize_method`` argument to the ``CompImageHDU``
constructor. A seed can be manually specified, or automatically generated
using either the system clock or checksum-based methods via the
``dither_seed`` argument. See the documentation for ``CompImageHDU`` for
more details.
- Images compressed with the Tile Compression standard can now be larger than
4 GB through support of the Q format.
- All HDUs now have a ``.ver`` ``.level`` attribute that returns the value of
the EXTVAL and EXTLEVEL keywords from that HDU's header, if the exist.
This was added for consistency with the ``.name`` attribute which returns
the EXTNAME value from the header.
- Then ``Column`` and ``ColDefs`` classes have new ``.dtype`` attributes
which give the Numpy dtype for the column data in the first case, and the
full Numpy compound dtype for each table row in the latter case.
- There was an issue where new tables created defaulted the values in all
string columns to '0.0'. Now string columns are filled with empty strings
by default--this seems a less surprising default, but it may cause
differences with tables created with older versions of PyFITS or Astropy.
- ``astropy.io.misc``
- The HDF5 reader can now refer to groups in the path as well as datasets;
if given a group, the first dataset in that group is read. [#1159]
- ``astropy.nddata``
- ``NDData`` objects have more helpful, though still rudimentary ``__str__`
and ``__repr__`` displays. [#1313]
- ``astropy.units``
- Added 'cycle' unit. [#1160]
- Extended units supported by the CDS formatter/parser. [#1468]
- Added unicode an LaTeX symbols for liter. [#1618]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Redundant SCAMP distortion parameters are removed with SIP distortions are
also present. [#1278]
- Added iterative implementation of ``all_world2pix`` that can be reliably
inverted. [#1281]
0.2.5 (2013-10-25)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- Fixed incorrect string formatting of Angles using ``precision=0``. [#1319]
- Fixed string formatting of Angles using ``decimal=True`` which ignored the
``precision`` argument. [#1323]
- Fixed parsing of format strings using appropriate unicode characters
instead of the ASCII ``-`` for minus signs. [#1429]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- Fixed a crash in the IPAC table reader when the ``include/exclude_names``
option is set. [#1348]
- Fixed writing AASTex tables to honor the ``tabletype`` option. [#1372]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Improved round-tripping and preservation of manually assigned column
attributes (``TNULLn``, ``TSCALn``, etc.) in table HDU headers. (Note: This
issue was previously reported as fixed in Astropy v0.2.2 by mistake; it is
not fixed until v0.3.) [#996]
- Fixed a bug that could cause a segfault when trying to decompress an
compressed HDU whose contents are truncated (due to a corrupt file, for
example). This still causes a Python traceback but better that than a
segfault. [#1332]
- Newly created ``CompImageHDU`` HDUs use the correct value of the
``DEFAULT_COMPRESSION_TYPE`` module-level constant instead of hard-coding
"RICE_1" in the header.
- Fixed a corner case where when extra memory is allocated to compress an
image, it could lead to unnecessary in-memory copying of the compressed
image data and a possible memory leak through Numpy.
- Fixed a bug where assigning from an mmap'd array in one FITS file over
the old (also mmap'd) array in another FITS file failed to update the
destination file. Corresponds to PyFITS issue 25.
- Some miscellaneous documentation fixes.
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- Added a warning for when a VOTable 1.2 file contains no ``RESOURCES``
elements (at least one should be present). [#1337]
- Fixed a test failure specific to MIPS architecture caused by an errant
floating point warning. [#1179]
- ``astropy.nddata.convolution``
- Prevented in-place modification of the input arrays to ``convolve()``.
[#1153]
- ``astropy.table``
- Added HTML escaping for string values in tables when outputting the table
as HTML. [#1347]
- Added a workaround in a bug in Numpy that could cause a crash when
accessing a table row in a masked table containing ``dtype=object``
columns. [#1229]
- Fixed an issue similar to the one in #1229, but specific to unmasked
tables. [#1403]
- ``astropy.units``
- Improved error handling for unparseable units and fixed parsing CDS units
without mantissas in the exponent. [#1288]
- Added a physical type for spectral flux density. [#1410]
- Normalized conversions that should result in a scale of exactly 1.0 to
round off slight floating point imprecisions. [#1407]
- Added support in the CDS unit parser/formatter for unusual unit prefixes
that are nonetheless required to be supported by that convention. [#1426]
- Fixed the parsing of ``sqrt()`` in unit format strings which was returning
``unit ** 2`` instead of ``unit ** 0.5``. [#1458]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- When passing a single array to the wcs transformation functions,
(``astropy.wcs.Wcs.all_pix2world``, etc.), its second dimension must now
exactly match the number of dimensions in the transformation. [#1395]
- Improved error message when incorrect arguments are passed to
``WCS.wcs_world2pix``. [#1394]
- Fixed a crash when trying to read WCS from FITS headers on Python 3.3
in Windows. [#1363]
- Only headers that are required as part of the WCSLIB C API are installed
by the package, per request of system packagers. [#1666]
- Misc
- Fixed crash when the ``COLUMNS`` environment variable is set to a
non-integer value. [#1291]
- Fixed a bug in ``ProgressBar.map`` where ``multiprocess=True`` could cause
it to hang on waiting for the process pool to be destroyed. [#1381]
- Fixed a crash on Python 3.2 when affiliated packages try to use the
``astropy.utils.data.get_pkg_data_*`` functions. [#1256]
- Fixed a minor path normalization issue that could occur on Windows in
``astropy.utils.data.get_pkg_data_filename``. [#1444]
- Fixed an annoyance where configuration items intended only for testing
showed up in users' astropy.cfg files. [#1477]
- Prevented crashes in exception logging in unusual cases where no traceback
is associated with the exception. [#1518]
- Fixed a crash when running the tests in unusual environments where
``sys.stdout.encoding`` is ``None``. [#1530]
- Miscellaneous documentation fixes and improvements [#1308, #1317, #1377,
#1393, #1362, #1516]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- Astropy installation now requests setuptools >= 0.7 during build/installation
if neither distribute or setuptools >= 0.7 is already installed. In other
words, if ``import setuptools`` fails, ``ez_setup.py`` is used to bootstrap
the latest setuptools (rather than using ``distribute_setup.py`` to bootstrap
the now obsolete distribute package). [#1197]
- When importing Astropy from a source checkout without having built the
extension modules first an ``ImportError`` is raised rather than a
``SystemExit`` exception. [#1269]
0.2.4 (2013-07-24)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- Fixed the angle parser to support parsing the string "1 degree". [#1168]
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- Fixed a crash in the ``comoving_volume`` method on non-flat cosmologies
when passing it an array of redshifts.
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- Fixed a bug that prevented saving changes to the comment symbol when
writing changes to a table. [#1167]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Added a workaround for a bug in 64-bit OSX that could cause truncation when
writing files greater than 2^32 bytes in size. [#839]
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- Fixed incorrect reading of tables containing multiple ``<RESOURCE>``
elements. [#1223]
- ``astropy.table``
- Fixed a bug where ``Table.remove_column`` and ``Table.rename_column``
could cause a masked table to lose its masking. [#1120]
- Fixed bugs where subclasses of ``Table`` did not preserver their class in
certain operations. [#1142]
- Fixed a bug where slicing a masked table did not preserve the mask. [#1187]
- ``astropy.units``
- Fixed a bug where the ``.si`` and ``.cgs`` properties of dimensionless
``Quantity`` objects raised a ``ZeroDivisionError``. [#1150]
- Fixed a bug where multiple subsequent calls to the ``.decompose()`` method
on array quantities applied a scale factor each time. [#1163]
- Misc
- Fixed an installation crash that could occur sometimes on Debian/Ubuntu
and other \*NIX systems where ``pkg_resources`` can be installed without
installing ``setuptools``. [#1150]
- Updated the ``distribute_setup.py`` bootstrapper to use setuptools >= 0.7
when installing on systems that don't already have an up to date version
of distribute/setuptools. [#1180]
- Changed the ``version.py`` template so that Astropy affiliated packages can
(and they should) use their own ``cython_version.py`` and
``utils._compiler`` modules where appropriate. This issue only pertains to
affiliated package maintainers. [#1198]
- Fixed a corner case where the default config file generation could crash
if building with matplotlib but *not* Sphinx installed in a virtualenv.
[#1225]
- Fixed a crash that could occur in the logging module on systems that
don't have a default preferred encoding (in particular this happened
in some versions of PyCharm). [#1244]
- The Astropy log now supports passing non-string objects (and calling
``str()`` on them by default) to the logging methods, in line with Python's
standard logging API. [#1267]
- Minor documentation fixes [#582, #696, #1154, #1194, #1212, #1213, #1246,
#1252]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- Added a new ``Plank13`` object representing the Plank 2013 results. [#895]
- ``astropy.units``
- Performance improvements in initialization of ``Quantity`` objects with
a large number of elements. [#1231]
0.2.3 (2013-05-30)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.time``
- Fixed inaccurate handling of leap seconds when converting from UTC to UNIX
timestamps. [#1118]
- Tightened required accuracy in many of the time conversion tests. [#1121]
- Misc
- Fixed a regression that was introduced in v0.2.2 by the fix to issue #992
that was preventing installation of Astropy affiliated packages that use
Astropy's setup framework. [#1124]
0.2.2 (2013-05-21)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.io``
- Fixed issues in both the ``fits`` and ``votable`` sub-packages where array
byte order was not being handled consistently, leading to possible crashes
especially on big-endian systems. [#1003]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- When an error occurs opening a file in fitsdiff the exception message will
now at least mention which file had the error.
- Fixed a couple cases where creating a new table using TDIMn in some of the
columns could cause a crash.
- Slightly refactored how tables containing variable-length array columns are
handled to add two improvements: Fixes an issue where accessing the data
after a call to the ``astropy.io.fits.getdata`` convenience function caused
an exception, and allows the VLA data to be read from an existing mmap of
the FITS file.
- Fixed a bug on Python 3 where attempting to open a non-existent file on
Python 3 caused a seemingly unrelated traceback.
- Fixed an issue in the tests that caused some tests to fail if Astropy is
installed with read-only permissions.
- Fixed a bug where instantiating a ``BinTableHDU`` from a numpy array
containing boolean fields converted all the values to ``False``.
- Fixed an issue where passing an array of integers into the constructor of
``Column()`` when the column type is floats of the same byte width caused
the column array to become garbled.
- Fixed inconsistent behavior in creating CONTINUE cards from byte strings
versus unicode strings in Python 2--CONTINUE cards can now be created
properly from unicode strings (so long as they are convertable to ASCII).
- Fixed a bug in parsing HIERARCH keywords that do not have a space after the
first equals sign (before the value).
- Prevented extra leading whitespace on HIERARCH keywords from being treated
as part of the keyword.
- Fixed a bug where HIERARCH keywords containing lower-case letters was
mistakenly marked as invalid during header validation along with an
ancillary issue where the ``Header.index()`` method id not work correctly
with HIERARCH keywords containing lower-case letters.
- Disallowed assigning NaN and Inf floating point values as header values,
since the FITS standard does not define a way to represent them in. Because
this is undefined, the previous behavior did not make sense and produced
invalid FITS files. [#954]
- Fixed an obscure issue that can occur on systems that don't have flush to
memory-mapped files implemented (namely GNU Hurd). [#968]
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- Stopped deprecation warnings from the ``astropy.io.votable`` package that
could occur during setup. [#970]
- Fixed an issue where INFO elements were being incorrectly dropped when
occurring inside a TABLE element. [#1000]
- Fixed obscure test failures on MIPS platforms. [#1010]
- ``astropy.nddata.convolution``
- Fixed an issue in ``make_kernel()`` when using an Airy function kernel.
Also removed the superfluous 'brickwall' option. [#939]
- ``astropy.table``
- Fixed a crash that could occur when adding a row to an empty (rowless)
table with masked columns. [#973]
- Made it possible to assign to one table row from the value of another row,
effectively making it easier to copy rows, for example. [#1019]
- ``astropy.time``
- Added appropriate ``__copy__`` and ``__deepcopy__`` behavior; this
omission caused a seemingly unrelated error in FK5 coordinate separation.
[#891]
- ``astropy.units``
- Fixed an issue where the ``isiterable()`` utility returned ``True`` for
quantities with scalar values. Added an ``__iter__`` method for the
``Quantity`` class and fixed ``isiterable()`` to catch false positives.
[#878]
- Fixed previously undefined behavior when multiplying a unit by a string.
[#949]
- Added 'time' as a physical type--this was a simple omission. [#959]
- Fixed issues with pickling unit objects so as to play nicer with the
multiprocessing module. [#974]
- Made it more difficult to accidentally override existing units with a new
unit of the same name. [#1070]
- Added several more physical types and units that were previously omitted,
including 'mass density', 'specific volume', 'molar volume', 'momentum',
'angular momentum', 'angular speed', 'angular acceleration', 'electric
current', 'electric current density', 'electric field strength', 'electric
flux density', 'electric charge density', 'permittivity', 'electromagnetic
field strength', 'radiant intensity', 'data quantity', 'bandwidth'; and
'knots', 'nautical miles', 'becquerels', and 'curies' respectively. [#1072]
- Misc
- Fixed a permission error that could occur when running ``astropy.test()``
on Python 3 when Astropy is installed as root. [#811]
- Made it easier to filter warnings from the ``convolve()`` function and
from ``Quantity`` objects. [#853]
- Fixed a crash that could occur in Python 3 when generation of the default
config file fails during setup. [#952]
- Fixed an unrelated error message that could occur when trying to import
astropy from a source checkout without having build the extension modules
first. This issue was claimed to be fixed in v0.2.1, but the fix itself had
a bug. [#971]
- Fixed a crash that could occur when running the ``build_sphinx`` setup
command in Python 3. [#977]
- Added a more helpful error message when trying to run the
``setup.py build_sphinx`` command when Sphinx is not installed. [#1027]
- Minor documentation fixes and restructuring.
[#935, #967, #978, #1004, #1028, #1047]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- Some performance improvements to the ``astropy.units`` package, in particular
improving the time it takes to import the sub-package. [#1015]
0.2.1 (2013-04-03)
------------------
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- Fixed encoding errors that could occur when formatting coordinate objects
in code using ``from __future__ import unicode_literals``. [#817]
- Fixed a bug where the minus sign was dropped when string formatting dms
coordinates with -0 degrees. [#875]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Properly supports the ZQUANTIZ keyword used to support quantization
level--this includes working support for lossless GZIP compression of
images.
- Fixed support for opening gzipped FITS files in a writeable mode. [#256]
- Added a more helpful exception message when trying to read invalid values
from a table when the required ``TNULLn`` keyword is missing. [#309]
- More refactoring of the tile compression handling to work around a
potential memory access violation that was particularly prevalent on
Windows. [#507]
- Fixed an integer size mismatch in the compression module that could affect
32-bit systems. [#786]
- Fixed malformatting of the ``TFORMn`` keywords when writing compressed
image tables (they omitted the max array length parameter from the
variable-length array format).
- Fixed a crash that could occur when writing a table containing multi-
dimensional array columns from an existing file into a new file.
- Fixed a bug in fitsdiff that reported two header keywords containing NaN
as having different values.
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- Fixed links to the ``astropy.io.votable`` documentation in the VOTable
validator output. [#806]
- When reading VOTables containing integers that are out of range for their
column type, display a warning rather than raising an exception. [#825]
- Changed the default string format for floating point values for better
round-tripping. [#856]
- Fixed opening VOTables through the ``Table.read()`` interface for tables
that have no names. [#927]
- Fixed creation of VOTables from an Astropy table that does not have a data
mask. [#928]
- Minor documentation fixes. [#932]
- ``astropy.nddata.convolution``
- Added better handling of ``inf`` values to the ``convolve_fft`` family of
functions. [#893]
- ``astropy.table``
- Fixed silent failure to assign values to a row on multiple columns. [#764]
- Fixed various buggy behavior when viewing a table after sorting by one of
its columns. [#829]
- Fixed using ``numpy.where()`` with table indexing. [#838]
- Fixed a bug where opening a remote table with ``Table.read()`` could cause
the entire table to be downloaded twice. [#845]
- Fixed a bug where ``MaskedColumn`` no longer worked if the column being
masked is renamed. [#916]
- ``astropy.units``
- Added missing capability for array ``Quantity``\s to be initializable by
a list of ``Quantity``\s. [#835]
- Fixed the definition of year and lightyear to be in terms of Julian year
per the IAU definition. [#861]
- "degree" was removed from the list of SI base units. [#863]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Fixed ``TypeError`` when calling ``WCS.to_header_string()``. [#822]
- Added new method ``WCS.all_world2pix`` for converting from world
coordinates to pixel space, including inversion of the astrometric
distortion correction. [#1066, #1281]
- Misc
- Fixed a minor issue when installing with ``./setup.py develop`` on a fresh
git clone. This is likely only of interest to developers on Astropy.
[#725]
- Fixes a crash with ``ImportError: No module named 'astropy.version'`` when
running setup.py from a source checkout for the first time on OSX with
Python 3.3. [#820]
- Fixed an installation issue where running ``./setup.py install`` or when
installing with pip the ``.astropy`` directory gets created in the home
directory of the user running the command. The user's ``.astropy``
directory should only be created when they use Astropy, not when they
install it. [#867]
- Fixed an exception when creating a ``ProgressBar`` with a "total" of 0.
[#752]
- Added better documentation of behavior that can occur when trying to import
the astropy package from within a source checkout without first building
the extension modules. [#795, #864]
- Added link to the installation instructions in the README. [#797]
- Catches segfaults in xmllint which can occur sometimes and is otherwise out
of our control. [#803]
- Minor changes to the documentation template. [#805]
- Fixed a minor exception handling bug in ``download_file()``. [#808]
- Added cleanup of any temporary files if an error occurs in
``download_file()``. [#857]
- Filesystem free space is checked for before attempting to download a file
with ``download_file()``. [#858]
- Fixed package data locating to work across symlinks--required to work with
some OS packaging layouts. [#827]
- Fixed a bug when building Cython extensions where hidden files containing
``.pyx`` extensions could cause the build to crash. This can be an issue
with software and filesystems that autogenerate hidden files. [#834]
- Fixed bug that could cause a "script" called README.rst to be installed
in a bin directory. [#852]
- Fixed some miscellaneous and mostly rare reference leaks caught by
cpychecker. [#914]
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- Added logo and branding for Windows binary installers. [#741]
- Upgraded included version libexpat to 2.1.0. [#781]
- ~25% performance improvement in unit composition/decomposition. [#836]
- Added previously missing LaTeX formatting for ``L_sun`` and ``R_sun``. [#841]
- ``ConfigurationItem``\s now have a more useful and informative ``__repr__``
and improved documentation for how to use them. [#855]
- Added a friendlier error message when trying to import astropy from a source
checkout without first building the extension modules inplace. [#864]
- ``py.test`` now outputs more system information for help in debugging issues
from users. [#869]
- Added unit definitions "mas" and "uas" for "milliarcsecond" and
"microarcsecond" respectively. [#892]
0.2 (2013-02-19)
----------------
New Features
^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is a brief overview of the new features included in Astropy 0.2--please
see the "What's New" section of the documentation for more details.
- ``astropy.coordinates``
- This new subpackage contains a representation of celestial coordinates,
and provides a wide range of related functionality. While
fully-functional, it is a work in progress and parts of the API may
change in subsequent releases.
- ``astropy.cosmology``
- Update to include cosmologies with variable dark energy equations of state.
(This introduces some API incompatibilities with the older Cosmology
objects).
- Added parameters for relativistic species (photons, neutrinos) to the
astropy.cosmology classes. The current treatment assumes that neutrinos are
massless. [#365]
- Add a WMAP9 object using the final (9-year) WMAP parameters from
Hinshaw et al. 2013. It has also been made the default cosmology.
[#629, #724]
- ``astropy.table`` I/O infrastructure for custom readers/writers
implemented. [#305]
- Added support for reading/writing HDF5 files [#461]
- Added support for masked tables with missing or invalid data [#451]
- New ``astropy.time`` sub-package. [#332]
- New ``astropy.units`` sub-package that includes a class for units
(``astropy.units.Unit``) and scalar quantities that have units
(``astropy.units.Quantity``). [#370, #445]
This has the following effects on other sub-packages:
- In ``astropy.wcs``, the ``wcs.cunit`` list now takes and returns
``astropy.units.Unit`` objects. [#379]
- In ``astropy.nddata``, units are now stored as ``astropy.units.Unit``
objects. [#382]
- In ``astropy.table``, units on columns are now stored as
``astropy.units.Unit`` objects. [#380]
- In ``astropy.constants``, constants are now stored as
``astropy.units.Quantity`` objects. [#529]
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- Improved integration with the ``astropy.table`` Table class so that
table and column metadata (e.g. keywords, units, description,
formatting) are directly available in the output table object. The
CDS, DAOphot, and IPAC format readers now provide this type of
integrated metadata.
- Changed to using `astropy.table` masked tables instead of NumPy
masked arrays for tables with missing values.
- Added SExtractor table reader to ``astropy.io.ascii`` [#420]
- Removed the Memory reader class which was used to convert data input
passed to the ``write`` function into an internal table. Instead
``write`` instantiates an astropy Table object using the data
input to ``write``.
- Removed the NumpyOutputter as the output of reading a table is now
always a ``Table`` object.
- Removed the option of supplying a function as a column output
formatter.
- Added a new ``strip_whitespace`` keyword argument to the ``write``
function. This controls whether whitespace is stripped from
the left and right sides of table elements before writing.
Default is True.
- Fixed a bug in reading IPAC tables with null values.
- Generalized I/O infrastructure so that ``astropy.nddata`` can also have
custom readers/writers [#659]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- From updating the the underlying wcslib 4.16:
- When ``astropy.wcs.WCS`` constructs a default coordinate representation
it will give it the special name "DEFAULTS", and will not report "Found
one coordinate representation".
Other Changes and Additions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- A configuration file with all options set to their defaults is now generated
when astropy is installed. This file will be pulled in as the users'
astropy configuration file the first time they ``import astropy``. [#498]
- Astropy doc themes moved into ``astropy.sphinx`` to allow affiliated packages
to access them.
- Added expanded documentation for the ``astropy.cosmology`` sub-package.
[#272]
- Added option to disable building of "legacy" packages (pyfits, vo, etc.).
- The value of the astronomical unit (au) has been updated to that adopted by
IAU 2012 Resolution B2, and the values of the pc and kpc constants have been
updated to reflect this. [#368]
- Added links to the documentation pages to directly edit the documentation on
GitHub. [#347]
- Several updates merged from ``pywcs`` into ``astropy.wcs`` [#384]:
- Improved the reading of distortion images.
- Added a new option to choose whether or not to write SIP coefficients.
- Uses the ``relax`` option by default so that non-standard keywords are
allowed. [#585]
- Added HTML representation of tables in IPython notebook [#409]
- Rewrote CFITSIO-based backend for handling tile compression of FITS files.
It now uses a standard CFITSIO instead of heavily modified pieces of CFITSIO
as before. Astropy ships with its own copy of CFITSIO v3.30, but system
packagers may choose instead to strip this out in favor of a
system-installed version of CFITSIO. This corresponds to PyFITS ticket 169.
[#318]
- Moved ``astropy.config.data`` to ``astropy.utils.data`` and re-factored the
I/O routines to separate out the generic I/O code that can be used to open
any file or resource from the code used to access Astropy-related data. The
'core' I/O routine is now ``get_readable_fileobj``, which can be used to
access any local as well as remote data, supports caching, and can decompress
gzip and bzip2 files on-the-fly. [#425]
- Added a classmethod to
``astropy.coordinates.coordsystems.SphericalCoordinatesBase`` that performs a
name resolve query using Sesame to retrieve coordinates for the requested
object. This works for any subclass of ``SphericalCoordinatesBase``, but
requires an internet connection. [#556]
- ``astropy.nddata.convolution`` removed requirement of PyFFTW3; uses Numpy's
FFT by default instead with the added ability to specify an FFT
implementation to use. [#660]
Bug Fixes
^^^^^^^^^
- ``astropy.io.ascii``
- Fixed crash when pprinting a row with INDEF values. [#511]
- Fixed failure when reading DAOphot files with empty keyword values. [#666]
- ``astropy.io.fits``
- Improved handling of scaled images and pseudo-unsigned integer images in
compressed image HDUs. They now work more transparently like normal image
HDUs with support for the ``do_not_scale_image_data`` and ``uint`` options,
as well as ``scale_back`` and ``save_backup``. The ``.scale()`` method
works better too. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 88.
- Permits non-string values for the EXTNAME keyword when reading in a file,
rather than throwing an exception due to the malformatting. Added
verification for the format of the EXTNAME keyword when writing.
Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 96.
- Added support for EXTNAME and EXTVER in PRIMARY HDUs. That is, if EXTNAME
is specified in the header, it will also be reflected in the ``.name``
attribute and in ``fits.info()``. These keywords used to be verboten in
PRIMARY HDUs, but the latest version of the FITS standard allows them.
Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 151.
- HCOMPRESS can again be used to compress data cubes (and higher-dimensional
arrays) so long as the tile size is effectively 2-dimensional. In fact,
compatible tile sizes will automatically be used even if they're not
explicitly specified. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 171.
- Fixed a bug that could cause a deadlock in the filesystem on OSX when
reading the data from certain types of FITS files. This only occurred
when used in conjunction with Numpy 1.7. [#369]
- Added support for the optional ``endcard`` parameter in the
``Header.fromtextfile()`` and ``Header.totextfile()`` methods. Although
``endcard=False`` was a reasonable default assumption, there are still text
dumps of FITS headers that include the END card, so this should have been
more flexible. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 176.
- Fixed a crash when running fitsdiff on two empty (that is, zero row) tables.
Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 178.
- Fixed an issue where opening a FITS file containing a random group HDU in
update mode could result in an unnecessary rewriting of the file even if
no changes were made. This corresponds to PyFITS ticket 179.
- Fixed a crash when generating diff reports from diffs using the
``ignore_comments`` options. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 181.
- Fixed some bugs with WCS Paper IV record-valued keyword cards:
- Cards that looked kind of like RVKCs but were not intended to be were
over-permissively treated as such--commentary keywords like COMMENT and
HISTORY were particularly affected. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 183.
- Looking up a card in a header by its standard FITS keyword only should
always return the raw value of that card. That way cards containing
values that happen to valid RVKCs but were not intended to be will still
be treated like normal cards. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 184.
- Looking up a RVKC in a header with only part of the field-specifier (for
example "DP1.AXIS" instead of "DP1.AXIS.1") was implicitly treated as a
wildcard lookup. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 184.
- Fixed a crash when diffing two FITS files where at least one contains a
compressed image HDU which was not recognized as an image instead of a
table. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 187.
- Fixed a bug where opening a file containing compressed image HDUs in
'update' mode and then immediately closing it without making any changes
caused the file to be rewritten unnecessarily.
- Fixed two memory leaks that could occur when writing compressed image data,
or in some cases when opening files containing compressed image HDUs in
'update' mode.
- Fixed a bug where ``ImageHDU.scale(option='old')`` wasn't working at
all--it was not restoring the image to its original BSCALE and BZERO
values.
- Fixed a bug when writing out files containing zero-width table columns,
where the TFIELDS keyword would be updated incorrectly, leaving the table
largely unreadable.
- Fixed a minor string formatting issue.
- Fixed bugs in the backwards compatibility layer for the ``CardList.index``
and ``CardList.count`` methods. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 190.
- Improved ``__repr__`` and text file representation of cards with long
values that are split into CONTINUE cards. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket
193.
- Fixed a crash when trying to assign a long (> 72 character) value to blank
('') keywords. This also changed how blank keywords are represented--there
are still exactly 8 spaces before any commentary content can begin; this
*may* affect the exact display of header cards that assumed there could be
fewer spaces in a blank keyword card before the content begins. However,
the current approach is more in line with the requirements of the FITS
standard. Corresponds to PyFITS ticket 194.
- ``astropy.io.votable``
- The ``Table`` class now maintains a single array object which is a
Numpy masked array. For variable-length columns, the object that
is stored there is also a Numpy masked array.
- Changed the ``pedantic`` configuration option to be ``False`` by default
due to the vast proliferation of non-compliant VO Tables. [#296]
- Renamed ``astropy.io.vo`` to ``astropy.io.votable``.
- ``astropy.table``
- Added a workaround for an upstream bug in Numpy 1.6.2 that could cause
a maximum recursion depth RuntimeError when printing table rows. [#341]
- ``astropy.wcs``
- Updated to wcslib 4.15 [#418]
- Fixed a problem with handling FITS headers on locales that do not use
dot as a decimal separator. This required an upstream fix to wcslib which
is included in wcslib 4.14. [#313]
- Fixed some tests that could fail due to missing/incorrect logging
configuration--ensures that tests don't have any impact on the default log
location or contents. [#291]
- Various minor documentation fixes [#293 and others]
- Fixed a bug where running the tests with the ``py.test`` command still tried
to replace the system-installed pytest with the one bundled with Astropy.
[#454]
- Improved multiprocessing compatibility for file downloads. [#615]
- Fixed handling of Cython modules when building from a source checkout of a
tagged release version. [#594]
- Added a workaround for a bug in Sphinx that could occur when using the
``:tocdepth:`` directive. [#595]
- Minor VOTable fixes [#596]
- Fixed how ``setup.py`` uses ``distribute_setup.py`` to prevent possible
``VersionConflict`` errors when an older version of distribute is already
installed on the user's system. [#616][#640]
- Changed use of ``log.warn`` in the logging module to ``log.warning`` since
the former is deprecated. [#624]
0.1 (2012-06-19)
----------------
- Initial release.
