Taitale tools

This documentation covers the various tools available in Taitale:

Tools

The tools module provides wrappers around radio astronomy tools.

Parset-based Tools

Many tools (like csimulator, linmos, selavy) use parameter sets (parsets) to configure their behavior. These tools accept the following common parameters:

parset (Union[str, Parset, None]): Either a path to a parset file, a Parset instance, or None to create a new Parset
args (dict): Dictionary of parameters to pass to the tool
workers (Optional[int]): Number of MPI workers to use for parallel processing

The args dictionary should contain string values for all parameters. For example:

args = {
    "dataset": "input.ms",
    "nchan": "16416",
    "singleoutputms": "true"
}

CLI-based Tools

Some tools (like msconcat, mslist, wsclean) use command-line arguments instead of parsets. These tools accept the following common parameters:

args (str): A string of command-line arguments
workers (Optional[int]): Number of MPI workers to use for parallel processing (if supported)

The args can be provided as:

args = "-o output.ms input1.ms input2.ms input3.ms"

Usage Examples

Tools using parsets

The tools in taitale can be used in several ways:

Using direct keyword arguments:

from taitale import taitale_env
from taitale.askap import linmos

env = taitale_env(runtime="container", image="csirocass/askapsoft", tag="1.17.6-openmpi4")

linmos(
    env=env,
    args={
        "names": "['image_1', 'image_2', 'image_3']",
        "weighttype": "FromPrimaryBeamModel",
        "outname": "mosaic.out",
        "outweight": "mosaic.weight.out",
    },
)

Using an existing parset file:

from taitale import taitale_env
from taitale.askap import ccalapply

env = taitale_env(runtime="container", image="csirocass/askapsoft", tag="1.17.6-openmpi4")
ccalapply(
    env=env,
    parset="ccalapply.in",
    args={
        "dataset": "1934-638.ms",
        "calibaccess.table": "1934-638.calib.tab",
    },
)

Using a parset instance:

from taitale import taitale_env
from taitale.askap import ccalapply
from taitale.utils import Parset

env = taitale_env(runtime="container", image="csirocass/askapsoft", tag="1.17.6-openmpi4")

# Create a parset instance
parset = Parset("Ccalapply")
parset.set("dataset", "1934-638.ms")
parset.set("calibrate.scalenoise", "true")
parset.set("calibrate.allowflag", "false")
parset.set("calibaccess", "table")
parset.set("calibaccess.table", "1934-638.calib.tab")
parset.set("calibaccess.table.maxbeam", "30")

ccalapply(parset=parset)

Tools using CLI arguments

For tools that use command-line arguments:

from taitale import taitale_env
from taitale.askap import mslist, msconcat

env = taitale_env(runtime="container", image="csirocass/askapsoft", tag="1.17.6-openmpi4")

# Simple tool with flags
mslist(
    env=env,
    args="--brief test.MS",
    logfile="mslist.txt"
)

# Tool with multiple input files
msconcat(
    env=env,
    args="-o output.ms input1.ms input2.ms input3.ms"
)

Notes

All parameter values in the args dictionary must be strings
Lists should be passed as string representations: "[1, 2, 3]"
Boolean values should be passed as strings: "true" or "false"
The workers parameter controls MPI parallelization for supported tools
Custom parset names can be specified using out_parset_name