Commands

MIDAS is a command driven system in which the user enters commands followed by parameters. This implies that the user must know a few commands and their structure in order to make effective use of the system. Since most users cannot keep all the commands and their parameters at their finger tips, an extensive on-line help facility has been created which can be used within the Midas terminal window as well as via a graphical user interface.
A MIDAS command has the following structure:

COMMAND/QUALIFIER par1 par2 ... par8

where par1 is the first parameter and so on. The important points are:

• Command and qualifier are separated by a / (slash).
• The command/qualifier and the parameters are separated by a space.
• Most commands have qualifiers.
• A parameter may contain several sub-parameters which are separated by commas.
• In most cases if the parameters are not specified, the system makes sensible defaults, but the user should not always trust these default values to be those he might have chosen.
• Keep these rules in mind, otherwise you will confuse the command.

MIDAS commands divide themselves into three categories:

• MIDAS basic (system) commands
• MIDAS application commands
• procedure control commands

All MIDAS commands are listed in alphabetical order and explained in detail in help graphical user interface of MIDAS or can be found on the home page of ESO Midas (web address: http://www.eso.org/projects/esomidas/). The application commands are developed for special purposes such as CCD or CASPEC reductions. They are described and listed in the various sections related to particular applications. For reductions of data you should refer to Volume B of this manual. The commands for Midas procedures are described in Chapter 3.