$ gunzip -c cda_v1.13.tar.gz | tar xvf - $ setenv PATH $HOME/cda:$PATHYou may need to also add the directory to your PYTHONPATH variable:
$ setenv PYTHONPATH $HOME/cda if PYTHONPATH already exists, this should be $ setenv PYTHONPATH $HOME/cda:$PYTHONPATHFor the stand-alone Solaris version, also add the cda directory to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Usage: cda.py (-q) source name or coords or obsid Gets position for sourcename using NED and then searches for available Chandra data (by downloading the CDA web page) If public ACIS data is available, minimal data files will be requested and downloaded, unless -q is specified (query-only) The html file with available data is saved to cda.html If this file exists, it is not downloaded again, i.e., delete it to refresh database If the input is a valid integer, it is assumed to be an obs id To specify which files to download, create 'files.dat' in the currecnt directory with one search string per line, e.g., evt1 evt2 aoff1
Briefly, cda.py goes through the steps that you would be doing if you tried to retrieve data using the CXC CDA www interface. A caveat is that if the CXC changes the format of these www pages, this script will likely break. Since the www page listing the full archive is large, cda.py saves it to cda.html and only downloads it from if it isn't already present (obviously more effecient for multiple queries).