sethead(1)

✨ sethead(1) — the manual page, but make it cute ✨

okay bestie, pull up a chair, because we're talking about sethead — a General Commands Manual girlie whose whole job is setting FITS or IRAF header keyword values 💅

🎀 NAME 🎀

sethead — Set FITS or IRAF header keyword values

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

sethead [-dknv][r letter] <FITS or IRAF file> kw1=val1 kw2=val2 ...
kwn=valuen

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So like, what sethead does is set parameters in the header of a FITS or IRAF image. iconic behavior honestly.

If the keywords you're setting do not already exist, they get added at the end of the header. no drama, they just slide in at the back 🫶

Here's the vibe check on how values get formatted:

• If a value contains no alphabetic characters, it's assumed to be numeric and it gets right-aligned.
• Otherwise it's left-aligned after the equals sign, and padded by spaces to a minimum of 8 characters.

Now, the listfile era 📋 — if you wanna set keywords across a whole list of files, just substitute @<listfile> for the file names on the command line. and if you've got a LOT of keywords to set, put them, one per line, in a file and substitute @<keylistfile> on the command line. slay.

And bestie, if two @ commands are present? the program will literally figure out which one contains file names and which one contains keywords. it's giving main character energy, it's giving mind reader ✨

One lil thing: lines in a keyword list file that don't contain an = are ignored. bye, not relevant, we move on 💀

💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -h — Write a HISTORY line into the output header with the sethead version, the current date and time, and the names of the keywords that got set. receipts, basically 🧾
• -k — Write a SETHEAD keyword into the output header with the sethead version, the current date and time, and the names of the keywords set. And if a SETHEAD keyword already exists, the old value gets moved to a HISTORY line before the new value is written. out with the old, in with the new 🎀
• -n — Write a new file, with an added "e" before the extension. new file who dis 🌱
• -r letter — Rename existing keywords whose values are being reset by prepending the character letter. If the changed keyword is already 8 characters long, drop the last character. (8 chars is the limit bestie, she's got no room 😭)
• -v — Print confirmations of each parameter setting. she's loud and she's proud, and honestly? we love the transparency 💅

🌈 WEB PAGE 🌈

http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools/sethead.html

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Jessica Mink, SAO (jmink@cfa.harvard.edu)

and that's the whole page bestie, no cap. this manual page was living in the WCSTools era and is dated 6 July 2001 — yeah, she's vintage, she's archival, and she's still sethead(1) through and through. 🦋✨ periodt.