PyCPL: The ESO Common Pipeline Library in Python v1.0

TL;DR

PyCPL enables astronomers to access and utilize the ESO Common Pipeline Library directly within Python, facilitating data reduction and recipe creation with full compatibility and integration with the Python scientific ecosystem.

Contribution

It introduces a Pythonic API for the ESO CPL, allowing seamless use of existing CPL recipes and the development of new ones in Python, bridging legacy C++ code with modern Python workflows.

Findings

Enables running existing CPL recipes in Python.

Provides a Python API for CPL functionalities.

Facilitates creation of new data reduction recipes in Python.

Abstract

PyCPL provides full access to ESO's Common Pipeline Library ( CPL) for astronomical data reduction within a Python environment. Not only does it offer a Python interface to the robust CPL library, but it also lets users and developers fully utilise the rest of the scientific Python ecosystem. We have written a C++ layer to CPL and with pybind11 (a third-party library) created a Pythonic API to CPL. Since CPL has been around for so long, it has been thoroughly tested and understood. In 2003 it was developed in C due to its efficiency and speed of execution. With the community however moving away from C/C++ programming and embracing Python for data processing tasks, there is a need to provide access to the CPL utilities within a Python environment. With the latest version being released users can now install PyCPL to run existing CPL recipes (written in C) and access the results from Python. It also provides the ability to create new recipes in Python using the functionality provided by CPL.