Month: August 2007

just type @file.batch

Drew Brisbin gently and helpfully reminded me (Joel) of these three helpful ways of getting online documentation help.

It is useful to remember these three commands to help you find your way in IDL:

1. help, VARIABLE
this will tell you stuff about the variable (is it a string? float? double? is it an array? how big is it?)
So when you did “help, point_lun ” it was trying to find a variable named point_lun. When it didn’t find one, it told you it was undefined.

2. ? IDLCOMMAND
When you hit ? [return] it opens up the IDL help browser. If you stick an IDL command you’re curious about after the ?-mark, it searches for that in the help browser. Very useful for figuring out how to use commands.

3. doc_library, ‘USERCOMMAND’
(remember to use single quotes around USERCOMMAND)
if you’re using a user-defined command (such as readcol, for instance), there wont be any help info in the built in help browser. So instead of using the ?-mark, you have to use doc_library. If the author of the command was courteous enough to include help-like information, it will be displayed when you type this.

Also see Sep 15 post below entitled: IDL path; IDL help; unix inside IDL