general procs

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Last modified: Tue Dec 20 11:48:26 2005.


List of Routines


Routine Descriptions

DEL_VAR

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 NAME:
       DEL_VAR

 PURPOSE:
       Program deletes an IDL variable from memory management.
       Unlike DELVAR, it can be called from program modules.

 CALLING SEQUENCE:
       DEL_VAR, variable

 INPUTS:
       variable: variable to be deleted

 OUTPUTS:
       None.

 COMMON BLOCKS:
       None.

 SIDE EFFECTS:
       The variable is now undefined.

 EXAMPLE:
       Define a variable...
       IDL> f = 1024
       IDL> help, f
       F               INT       =     1024

       Delete the variable...
       IDL> del_var, f
       IDL> help, f
       F               UNDEFINED = 

 MODIFICATION HISTORY:
   15 Feb 2004  Written by Tim Robishaw, Berkeley

(See /dzd2/heiles/idl/gen/general/del_var.pro)


DOC

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 NAME:
       doc

 PURPOSE:
       Shorthand for doc_library.

 CALLING SEQUENCE:
       doc, name

 INPUTS:
       Name - A string containing the name of the IDL routine in question. 

 KEYWORD PARAMETERS:
       All keywords accepted by DOC_LIBRARY are also accepted here.

 OUTPUTS:
       None.

 NOTES:
       If a routine is compiled but the directory of the routine is not
       in !PATH, then in order to get the documentation, you need to specify
       the DIRECTORY keyword must be set to the directory of the routine.

 MODIFICATION HISTORY:
   26 Feb 2003  Written by Tim Robishaw, Berkeley
   03 Oct 2005  TR.  Added _REF_EXTRA options.

(See /dzd2/heiles/idl/gen/general/doc.pro)


GETNCOL

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 NAME:
       GETNCOL

 PURPOSE:
       Read data array of given number of columns from an ASCII data file.

 CALLING SEQUENCE:
       GETNCOL, FNAME, NUMCOL, RESULT, [,/BYTE|/INT|/LONG|/FLOAT|/DOUBLE]
       [,SKIP=skip][,LINES=lines][,/SILENT]

 INPUTS:
       FNAME - File name.
       NUMCOL - Number of columns in the file.

 KEYWORD PARAMETERS:
       /BYTE - if set, data read as byte type.
       /INT - if set, data read as integer type.
       /LONG - if set, data read as long integer type.
       /FLOAT - if set, data read as floating-point type.
       /DOUBLE - if set, data read as double-precision 
                 floating-point type.
       SKIP - The number of lines to skip at the start of the file.
       LINES - Set this keyword to a named variable that stores the
               number of lines read into the data array.
       /SILENT - Set this keyword to prevent messages.

 OUTPUTS:
       RESULT - Array containing the data read from file.

 COMMON BLOCKS:
       None.

 RESTRICTIONS:
       All data are assumed to be of the same data type.

 EXAMPLE:
       Read in 12 columns of byte type data from the file file.dat,
       skipping the first 3 lines and suppressing messages:

       IDL> GETNCOL, 'file.dat', 12, data, /BYTE, /SILENT

 NOTES:
       If no data type keyword is specifies, then floating-point 
       is assumed.

 MODIFICATION HISTORY:
   02 Mar 2003  Written by Tim Robishaw, Berkeley

(See /dzd2/heiles/idl/gen/general/getncol.pro)