Things
to remember:
1. Type 'idl' to start, or 'idlde' if you want the development
environment
(GUI version, with debuggers, profilers etc.)
2. Type '?' for detailed help pages - this is identical to the 3
volumes
of books that come with IDL so don't bother with the books
3. Most useful commands are print, mean, min, max, where, plot,
oplot
- lots more in the index of the help pages
e.g.
a = 3
b = 5
c = a*b
print, c
x = findgen(100)
y = x^2
plot, x, y
4.
Type 'help' to get a listing of what arrays are in the memory and
what procedures
have been compiled.
Batch files and procedures
1. Use '@filename' to run commands from a file - N.B. you cannot use
nested
LOOPS (e.g. FOR LOOPS) in batch files. These are useful for quick jobs.
2. Procedures look like the following (e.g. test.pro)
PRO test, x, y, z
a = x + y + z
print, a
END
Compile them using '.run test' and then type 'test'. If you have
linked them into your path (see below) you can just type 'test' and
it
will compile and run automatically.
Output
to postscript
1. First set the output to the postscipt device rather than the
screen
-
type:
IDL > set_plot,'ps'
2. Set the name of the output file (if you don't specify a name the
output
goes to idl.ps by default):
IDL >
device,filename='mygraph.ps'
3. Plot you graph as you would normally e.g.
IDL> plot,x,y,title="A
Title"
4. Close the file:
IDL> device,/close
5. Set the device back to the screen:
IDL > set_plot,'x'
Customizing IDL
In your .cshrc file in your home directory (this file contains the
settings for your machine and any of your own
modifications
can go
in here), type:-
setenv IDL_STARTUP /home/username/idl.start
When you login this will tell IDL to look for a file called
idl.start
in your home directory. You can now place IDL commands into this text
file (idl.start) with your own customizations.
The most important thing is to link in extra paths containing useful
procedures (e.g. the IDL Astronomy libary). The astronomy library
lives on the system in /usr/local/rsi/idl_5.4/astro_lib/pro (at the
moment anyway). So to add all the directories in here you can make
IDL
get them automatically using the EXPAND_PATH function as follows:
; IDL STARTUP FILE put in extra paths
!path = expand_path('+/usr/local/rsi/idl_5.4/astro_lib/pro/') + !path
However, I recommend that you go to the web page
http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/homepage.html where it tells you all
about the different procedures and how you can download them. You can
then install them on your scratch disk and link them from there so
you
can keep them up to date.
Miscellaneous
1. Search on the web for particular functions - e.g. IMDISP is very
useful for displaying images - it automatically scales
the image to
the device and can put axes and other things very quickly
and
easy. There are also other libraries (e.g. the COBE data
analysis
software can be downloaded).
Useful websites:-
IDL Astronomy User's Library:
http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/contents.html
Introduction to IDL:
http://www.msi.umn.edu/software/idl/tutorial/
U of W Astronomy IDL Page:
http://www.astro.washington.edu/deutsch/idl/index.html
Please let me know of any other BASIC problems/tips that might
be useful to newcomers (particularly students) to IDL.