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### 2.4 Getting Help

As well as the command descriptions in this document (especially the reference section Appendix B) you can get help for STILTS usage from the command itself. Typing

       stilts -help

results in this output:

       Usage:
          stilts [-help] [-version] [-verbose] [-allowunused] [-prompt] [-bench]
                 [-debug] [-batch] [-memory] [-disk] [-memgui]
                 [-checkversion <vers>] [-stdout <file>] [-stderr <file>]
                 <task-name> <task-args>

          stilts <task-name> help[=<param-name>|*]

          Known tasks:
             calc
             cdsskymatch
             cone
             coneskymatch
             datalinklint
             funcs
             pixfoot
             pixsample
             plot2d
             plot3d
             plothist
             regquery
             server
             sqlclient
             sqlskymatch
             sqlupdate
             taplint
             tapquery
             tapresume
             tapskymatch
             tcat
             tcatn
             tcopy
             tcube
             tjoin
             tloop
             tmatch1
             tmatch2
             tmatchn
             tmulti
             tmultin
             tpipe
             tskymap
             tskymatch2
             votcopy
             votlint
             plot2plane
             plot2sky
             plot2cube
             plot2sphere
             plot2time

For help on the individual tasks, including their parameter lists, you can supply the word `help` after the task name, so for instance

       stilts tcopy help

results in

       Usage: tcopy ifmt=<in-format> ofmt=<out-format>
                    [in=]<table> [out=]<out-table>

Finally, you can get help on any of the parameters of a task by writing `help=<param-name>`, like this:

       stilts tcopy help=in

gives

       Help for parameter IN in task TCOPY
       -----------------------------------

          Name:
             in

          Usage:
             [in=]<table>

          Summary:
             Location of input table

          Description:
             The location of the input table. This may take one of the following
             forms:

              * A filename.
              * A URL.
              * The special value "-", meaning standard input. In this case the
                   input format must be given explicitly using the ifmt parameter.
                   Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.
              * A scheme specification of the form :<scheme-name>:<scheme-args>.
              * A system command line with either a "<" character at the start, or
                   a "|" character at the end ("<syscmd" or "syscmd|"). This
                   executes the given pipeline and reads from its standard output.
                   This will probably only work on unix-like systems.

             In any case, compressed data in one of the supported compression
             formats (gzip, Unix compress or bzip2) will be decompressed
             transparently.

          Type:
             uk.ac.starlink.table.StarTable

If you use "`*`" instead of a parameter name in this usage, help for all the parameters will be printed. Note that in most shells you will probably need to quote the asterisk, so you should write

       stilts tcopy help='*'

In some cases, as described in Section 2.3, you will be prompted for the value of a parameter with a line something like this:

       matcher - Name of matching algorithm [sky]:

In this case, if you enter "`help`" or a question mark, then the parameter help entry will be printed to the screen, and the prompt will be repeated.

For more detailed descriptions of the tasks, which includes explanatory comments and examples as well as the information above, see the full task descriptions in the Command Reference.

Next Previous Up Contents
Next: Invocation
Up: The stilts command
Previous: Task Arguments

STILTS - Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library Tool Set
Starlink User Note256
STILTS web page: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/
Author email: m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Mailing list: topcat-user@jiscmail.ac.uk