4.7.1 Initialization of UIO Routines under IDL

The directory containing the IDL UIO routines should be added to the IDL variable !PATH. This could be done by a program segment in the startup procedure, like:

; -- Try to determine language --
if (n_elements(!X.TICKV) eq 150) then langua='WAVE' else langua='IDL'
;
; -- Add user IDL directory to search path --
if (langua eq 'IDL') then begin &$
  addpath=expand_path('+$UIOPATH/idl') &$
endif else begin &$
  addpath='/home/supas024/uio/idl' + ':' + '/home/supas024/wave' &$
endelse
if strtrim(addpath,2) ne '' then !path=addpath+':'+!path
delvar, addpath

Alternatively, one might want to set the IDL path variable accordingly like

export IDL_PATH="+$UIOPATH/idl"

for example in the .bashrc file. Or one just copies or links the UIO IDL routines to a location in the standard IDL search path.

It is reasonable to include the UIO initialization in the startup procedure as e.g.:

; -- Initialize uio-routines --
uio_init, progrm='by hand'

IDL can handle the conversion types native, ieee_4, ieeele_4, ieee, idl, xdr (compare Tab. 4 in Sect 4.3.1). Here, ieee_4 is the default and should be used as a standard.

Attention: The IDL type ``long'' corresponds to the standard Fortran type ``integer''. The IDL types ``byte'' and ``integer'' are not known in standard Fortran and are therefore transformed to the IDL type ``long'' before writing (in the IDL routine uio_wr).

Be aware of: The parsing and interpretation of the entry headers can only be done by scalar operations which are comparatively slow in IDL.