xraylib 3.1.0

Quantitative estimate of elemental composition by spectroscopic and imaging techniques using X-ray fluorescence requires the availability of accurate data of X-ray interaction with matter. Although a wide number of computer codes and data sets are reported in literature, none of them is presented in the form of freely available library functions which can be easily included in software applications for X-ray fluorescence. This work presents a compilation of data sets from different published works and an xraylib interface in the form of callable functions. Although the target applications are on X-ray fluorescence, cross sections of interactions like photoionization, coherent scattering and Compton scattering, as well as form factors and anomalous scattering functions, are also available.

xraylib provides access to some of the most respected databases of physical data in the field of x-rays. The core of xraylib is a library, written in ANSI C, containing over 40 functions to be used to retrieve data from these databases. This C library can be directly linked with any program written in C, C++ or Objective-C. Furthermore, the xraylib package contains bindings to several popular programming languages: Fortran 2003, Perl, Python, Java, IDL, Lua, Ruby, PHP and .NET, as well as a command-line utility which can be used as a pocket-calculator. Although not officially supported, xraylib has been reported to be useable from within Matlab and LabView.

The source code is known to compile and run on the following platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD and Windows.
Development occurs on Github: http://github.com/tschoonj/xraylib
Downloads are hosted by the X-ray Micro-spectroscopy and Imaging research group of Ghent University: http://lvserver.ugent.be/xraylib

Version 3.1.0 release notes:

- Database of commonly used radionuclides for X-ray sources added (new API: GetRadioNuclideDataByName, GetRadioNuclideDataByIndex, GetRadioNuclideDataList and FreeRadioNuclideData)
- numpy Python bindings added, generated with Cython. Performance basically the same as the core C library. (suggested by Matt Newville)
- docstring support added to Python bindings (suggested by Matt Newville)
- Windows SDKs now have support for Python 3.4.
- Windows 64-bit SDK now comes with IDL bindings
- Confirmed support for LabView (thanks to Dariush Hampai!)
- Universal Intel 32/64 bit Framework built for Mac OS X
- Perl support for Debian/Ubuntu
- Several bugfixes: thanks to those that reported them!