Astro::SLA -- interface to C SLALIB library
==========

This module provides an interface layer to the C version of the SLALIB
library.  From the abstract of the SLALIB manual (written by Par
Wallace):

   "SLALIB is a library used by writers of positional-astronomy
   applications. Most of the 171 routines are concerned with
   astronomical position and time, but a number have wider
   trigonometrical, numerical or general applications."

Documentation:

 Instructions on the p

Requirements:
-------------

 - This module requires the C version of the SLALIB library
   written by Pat Wallace. It will not work with the Starlink
   (FORTRAN) version of SLALIB. Please contact Pat Wallace
   (ptw@star.rl.ac.uk) if you would like a copy of the library.

   It has been tested with the May 1998 release of SLALIB.

   A C compiler is required - this is an XS module.

Platforms:
----------

   This module has been tested on the following platforms:

   - SPARC Solaris 2.6, Sun CC, perl5.004_04
   - SPARC Solaris 2.6, Sun CC, perl5.005_03
   - RedHat Linux 6.0, egcs, perl5.005_03

Installation:
-------------

 - Edit the Makefile.PL so that the location of the SLA
   library and include files are correct.
 
   In general you will have a libsla.a or a libcsla.a.
   The default is to search for libcsla.a. You will have 
   to change the LIBS entry if you use libsla.a for the C version.
   It is assumed the library is available from /usr/local/lib by default.

   The includes files, slamac.h and slalib.h, should be available
   in the default path. If they are somewhere else the Makefile.PL 
   should be edited to reflect this location. For example,
   change the line
 
     INC => '',

   to

     INC => '-I/home/me/include',

   to pick them up from /home/me/include

Then:

  % perl Makefile.PL
  % make
  % make test
  % make install

The compilation will generate some prototype errors relating to
pointers to arrays. These can be ignored - I will fix them
eventually.

Currently there is only one test (converting B1950 to J2000).

Documentation:
--------------

The module provides documentation on how to use the perl interface
to SLALIB. It does not contain information on how to use
SLALIB itself. For more information on SLALIB see:

  http://star-www.rl.ac.uk/star/docs/sun67.htx/sun67.html


Copyright
---------

This module is copyright (C) 1998 Tim Jenness and PPARC.  All rights
reserved.  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. 

The SLALIB library (C version) is copyrighted by Patrick Wallace
(ptw@star.rl.ac.uk). Please contact him if you would like a 
copy of the library.

The array handling code was written by Karl Glazebrook.