7.1 Preparations

Make the UIO IDL routines visible to IDL - somehow. There are several ways to do that. Three are described below:

We recommend to create an initialization file (e.g. named start.pro) which should be called after starting IDL (e.g. @start). This is necessary to define relevant paths of IDL subroutines and to provide the UIO package. Thus, the file should contain the following:

; -- Add user IDL directory to search path --
addpath=expand_path('+$UIOPATH/idl')
addpath=addpath + ':' + expand_path('+$HOME/HYDRO/IDL/rhdpro')
if strtrim(addpath,2) ne '' then !path=addpath+':'+!path
delvar, addpath
; -- Initialize uio-routines --
uio_init, progrm='by hand'

Note: Before using IDL the environment variables for the CO5BOLD paths should have been set. Use setarcdeppaths.sh (or .ksh, .csh) for this purpose. Important is ${UIOPATH} which specifies where to find the IDL routines for the UIO handling in the script above.

Alternatively, one might set the IDL path variable accordingly like

export IDL_PATH="+$UIOPATH/idl"

for example in the .bashrc file before starting IDL.

Or, you just make a symbolic link from the UIO IDL routines at their original location to a sub-directory of the main IDL directory, which should be in the IDL path anyway.

The initial (single) call of uio_init is necessary in any case.