The Selfdoc - Program Self-Documentation

There are no Unix man pages for SU. To some people that seems to be a surprise (even a disappointment) as this would seem to be a standard Unix feature, which Seismic Unix should emulate. The package does contain an equivalent mechanism called a selfdoc or self-documentation feature.

This is a paragraph that is written into every program, and arranged so that if the name of the program is typed on the commandline of a Unix terminal window, with no options or redirects to or from files, the paragraph is printed to standard error (the screen).

For example:

% sustack
                                                                
 SUSTACK - stack adjacent traces having the same key header word
                                                                
     sustack <input >output [Optional parameters]
                                                                
 Required parameters:                                           
        none                                                    
                                                                
 Optional parameters:                                           
        key=cdp         header key word to stack on             
        normpow=1.0     each sample is divided by the           
                        normpow'th number of non-zero values    
                        stacked (normpow=0 selects no division) 
        verbose=0       verbose = 1 echos information           
                                                                
 Note:  The offset field is set to zero on the output traces.   
        Sushw can be used afterwards if this is not acceptable.

The first line indicates the name of the program sustack and a short description of what the program does. This is the same line that appears for the listing of sustack in the suname listing. The second line

     sustack <stdin >stdin [Optional parameters]

indicates how the program is to be typed on the commandline, with the words ``stdin'' and ``stdout'' indicating that the input is from the standard input and standard output, respectively. What this means in Unix terms is that the user could be inputting and outputting data via diskfiles or the Unix ``redirect in'' $<$ and ``redirect out'' $>$ symbols, or via pipes $\vert$.

The paragraphs labeled by ``Required parameters:'' and ``Optional parameters'' indicate the commandline parameters which are required for the operation of the program, and those which are optional. The default values of the Optional parameters are given via the equality are the values that the program assumes for these parameters when data are supplied, with no additional commandline arguments given. For example: ``key=cdp'' indicates that sustack will stack over the common depth point gather number field, ``cdp.'' (The shell script sukeyword tells the choices of keyword that are available.)