Installation#
Stable release#
To install dask-ms, run this command in your terminal:
$ pip install dask-ms
This is the preferred method to install dask-ms, as it will always install the most recent stable release.
If you don’t have pip installed, this Python installation guide can guide you through the process.
python-casacore#
python-casacore is a dependency of dask-ms, used to access CASA tables. This means that when we do the following:
$ pip install dask-ms
pip will download python-casacore and try to install it. There are binary wheels for versions of python-casacore >= 3.1.1 which, in general, make the installation process trivial.
However, pip will attempt to build earlier versions from source.
Building python-casacore from source#
For pip to build python-casacore from source, the appropriate C and C++ libraries must be installed otherwise this build process will fail. The full list of packages are available here:
Updating casacore Measures data#
python-casacore wraps an internal casacore Measurement system that is used to relate astronomical objects to each other in space and time. Measures data is frequently updated and casacore/python-casacore will complain if it is out of date.
The measures data can be downloaded at the location specified here:
Uncompress the measures data to some appropriate location, such
as ~/opt/casacore/data and point your python-casacore installation
to it by creating a .casarc file in your home directory
with the following contents:
measures.directory: ~/opt/casacore/data/