Data lines in SLHA files should start with spaces
Posted: 22. Feb 2018, 15:26
The SUSY Les Houches Accord specifies (arXiv:hep-ph/0311123, section 3):
According to that, each data line (lines within a block) must start with at least one space. However, lines in SLHA files generated by SARAH (using MakeSPheno[]) generally don’t start with spaces (see Package/SPheno/SPhenoLesHouchesAndMake.m). This is causing problems, for example, with pySLHA (arXiv:1305.4194). When pySLHA encounters such lines without initial spaces, it simply removes them from the input entirely. Thus, it would be nice if SARAH’s SLHA files could be made conforming by adding a space before every data line.
- The first character of every line is reserved for control and comment statements. Data lines should have the first character empty.
…- A line with a blank first character is a data statement, to be interpreted according to what data the current block contains. Comments and/or descriptions added after the data values, e.g. “ ... # comment”, should always be added, to increase readability of the file for human readers.