Execute and options reference

The formal specification for the execute() and options() functions is as follows.

execute(data)

This is the main flagging function that is to be implemented by the flagging script. AOFlagger will look for the global execute function, and call this when data is available to be flagged. It is possible to give this function a different name, or have multiple functions by changing the defaults in options().

On input, the data option contains the visibility data and the current flag mask. The object’s interface is described by the Data class. The task of the execute function is to modify this data object.

The command line aoflagger program will go through a measurement set, call execute for each baseline and save the resulting flag mask. The visibilities themselves are not written back to the measurement set, so any changes to them (e.g. by low_pass_filter()) will not change the data on disk.

It is fine for the execute function to set global parameters. Note however that, when execute is called by aoflagger, different calls to execute might run within a different Lua context. Every thread is assigned its own Lua context.

Parameters:data (Data) – Single-baseline data to be flagged

options()

This special function is called by aoflagger to obtain options that are relevant for the strategy (or strategies).

It should return a table for which each entry in the table maps a label to an option list. An option list is a table itself, mapping option names to their values. Any option that is not set, is left to its default.

Options on the command line override options that are set by the strategy for all runs defined. The options function is optional: if it is not defined, all options are left to their defaults. Available options can be found on the list of options.

Returns:An option list Return type:Table