Loading and Running Tasks

First of all, if you're wondering what CASA task is needed for a job, you should start with tasklist or taskhelp. These will summarize the tasks CASA has to offer.

Loading Tasks

Once you know which task you want, there are three distinct ways to invoke it. The first:

default('clean')

will load up a task with the default parameters.

The second---equivalent to TASK in AIPS---will invoke a task, but will transfer over any currently-used parameters to that "new" task (the rest it will set to defaults).

inp clean

This might come in handy if, say, you have already set the 'vis' and 'spw' parameters for one task, and would like to use these same settings in another task.

Finally, the third option is:

 tget clean

which is conveniently equivalent to TGET in AIPS This will recall the parameters from the last time the invoked task was run successfully.

Note that any of these three will work the first time you invoke a task, regardless of any nasty errors CASA might give you.

Running Tasks

To run a task after you've invoked it and set the parameters as you like, you can simply type

 go clean

a la AIPS, or you type

 clean()

Note that if you want to run a task asynchronously (in the background), you have to use the latter option.

--Laura Chomiuk 20:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)