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The documentation for AIPS++ is layered and so it is useful for you to understand that layering so that you can use it effectively.
There are dictionaries for AIPS and Miriad.
The AIPS++ Cookbook is designed to provide information on how to do relatively high-level things that are likely to be relevant to an astronomer processing data. To use these Volumes effectively, you should have some familiarity with Glish, and you should understand the basic AIPS++ concepts regarding tools and how to use them.
The Cookbook comes in three volumes.
Volume 1 - Basic Tools gives examples of how to use some generic AIPS++ capability such as tables, plotting, image manipluation and data display.
Volume 2 - Generic Processing describes generic astronomical data processing.
Volume 3 - Telescope Specific Processing describes telescope-specific data processing.
The Cookbook volumes show you how to do some things. But for all the details of each tool that you might find in these examples, you will ultimately need to refer to the User Reference Manual.
The Recipes Repository provides Glish scripts of limited scope which perform or demonstrate a useful operation.
Another source of high-level information is in the series of News Letters (now terminated). These are aimed at describing some interesting piece of functionality for astronomers.
There is a comprehensive Glish Manual that you should use to gain a detailed understanding of Glish. It is a reference manual. Therefore if there is something you want to do in Glish, but don't know the syntax for, this manual is the place to look.
The ultimate repository of information about AIPS++ tools is the User Reference Manual. This manual does not generally offer you astronomical context (this is the job of the CookBook). It is truly a Reference Manual.
To use the URM effectively, you should be reasonably experienced with Glish and you must understand the basic AIPS++ concepts regarding tools and how to use them.
It is the URM that will enable you to write your own Glish scripts and create your own tools using other AIPS++ tools.
This manual is structured hierarchically by Package, Module and Tool. Each Package is targeted at a broad functional area such as Synthesis processing. Within each package there are a number of Modules, breaking the package structure into smaller components. Finally, each Module contains a number of tools and (global) functions.
Each Module has ``Module'' documentation to a varying degree. This documentation is expected to offer you information that is relevant to all of the tools in the module, and that which unifies those tools. There are usually some examples in the Module documentation.
Each tool is documented in the same structure. There will be some general discussion about what the tool is for and what its capabilties are and some examples of how to use it. Then each tool constructor and function is documented. These should describe what every argument to every constructor or function does. There should be some examples as well.
The quality of the User Reference Manual is uneven. There are some well-documented Modules and tools and some poorly documented ones.
Other technical information can be found in the series of Notes. These Notes cover a wide range of interests from software techniques to algorithms. They are not aimed at the casual user.