.. Copyright 2009-2012 Peter Williams

   This file is part of miriad-python.

   Miriad-python is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
   modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
   published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
   License, or (at your option) any later version.

   Miriad-python is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
   WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
   General Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
   along with miriad-python.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

.. _data:
.. sectionauthor:: Peter Williams <peter@newton.cx>

Loading and Processing MIRIAD Data
==================================

*miriad-python* deals with MIRIAD data on two levels:

* There is a lightweight high-level class, :class:`miriad.Data`, that
  allows you to easily store references to datasets, check whether they
  exist, rename them, and so on.

* There is a lower-level module, :mod:`mirtask`, that lets you open up
  datasets and access at their contents directly. Doing so successfully
  requires a familiarity with the details of the MIRIAD data formats,
  which this documentation does not attempt to provide.

If you're just getting started with *miriad-python*, it's important to
understand the high-level :class:`miriad.Data` class but not necessary
to read about the low-level :mod:`mirtask` module just yet.

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 3

   data-highlev.txt
   data-lowlev.txt
   data-util.txt