Miscellaneous Procedures pro/misc September
1997
The procedures in this directory are general utility procedures that do not involve astronomy. They are included here either because they are required by an astronomy-related procedure, or because they are thought to be of sufficient general interest.
The procedure ASTROLIB defines the non-standard system variables
!TEXTOUT,
!TEXTUNIT and !DEBUG which some Astronomy Library procedures require to be defined before they can compile
ASTROLIB - Add the non-standard system variables in use in the IDL
Astronomy User's Library
BOOST_ARRAY - Append one array onto another, adjusting dimensions if necessary
BREAK_PATH() - break up a !PATH-like string into individual directories
BSORT() - Like the IDL SORT function but subscript order is maintained when
value are equal -- like a bubble sort.
CIRRANGE - Force an angle to be in the range 0 to 2*!PI (or 0 to 360).
CONCAT_DIR - concatenate directory and file name for current OS
CONV_UNIX_VAX - Convert IEEE datatype to VMS datatypes
CONV_VAX_UNIX() - Convert Vax datatypes to Unix using proper byteswapping
DATATYPE() - Return the datatype of an IDL variable as a string (in
/jhuapl)
DELVARX - Delete an IDL variable; like DELVAR but works at any calling level
DETABIFY() - Replace tabs in a character string by equivalent number of spaces
EXPAND_TILDE() - Expand the tilde in Unix directory names
F_FORMAT() - Find the "best" F format to display an array of REAL*4 numbers.
FDECOMP - Decompose a file name (Disk + Directory + Name + Extension +
Version)
FINDPRO - Find all occurrences of a procedure in one's !PATH
FIND_WITH_DEF - Search for files with default path and extension
FORPRINT -Print a set of vectors by looping over each index value
GETFILES -Interactively specify a list of file numbers.
GETLOG() - Format the input name as a logical directory in the host OS
GETOPT() - Parse a user supplied string into numeric value(s).
GETPRO - Search !PATH directory for a procedure and copy into user's directory
GETTOK() - Extract a string up to a specified character.
GETWRD() - Get specified item (word) from a string (in /jhuapl)
HOST_TO_IEEE - Convert IDL variable from host machine bit order to IEEE
HPRINT - Pretty terminal display of a FITS header (or other string array)
IEEE_TO_HOST - Convert IDL variable from IEEE bit order to host machine
ISARRAY() - Determine if an IDL variable is an array (in /jhuapl)
IS_IEEE_BIG() - Determine if the host machine is IEEE big endian
LIST_WITH_PATH() - Search for files within specified directory path
MAKE_2D - Change from 1-D indexing to 2-D indexing
MATCH - Find the subscripts where the values of two vectors match.
MRD_SKIP - Skip a number of bytes from current location in a file or Unix pipe
MINMAX() - Return the min and max of an array in an 2 element vector

NULLTRIM() -Delete all characters after, and including, the the first null
byte(0). Called by TAB_PUT.
NUMLINES() - Return the number of lines in a file
ONE_ARROW - Draw an arrow labeled with a single character
ONE_RAY - Draw a ray by specifying starting point, angle, and length
ORDINAL() - Return the English equivalent of ordinal numbers, i.e.
'1st','2nd'
OSFCNVRT() - Format the input as a logical name in the host operating system
OS_FAMILY() - Return the operating system formatted as in
!VERSION.OS_FAMILY
POLREC - Convert from polar to rectangular coordinates (in /jhuapl)
PRODUCT() - Return the product of all the elements of an array.
QGET_STRING() - Read a string (eg. password) from the keyboard without echoing it
RDFLOAT - Quickly read an ASCII file with columns of data into IDL vectors
READCOL - Read a file of free-format ASCII data into IDL vectors
READFMT - Quickly read a file of fixed-format ASCII data into IDL vectors
READ_KEY() - Like GET_KBRD but returns a code for escape sequences.
RECPOL - Convert from rectangular to polar coordinates (in /jhuapl)
REMCHAR - Remove all appearances of a character from a string.
REM_DUP() - Remove duplicate values from a vector.
REMOVE - Contract a vector or up to 8 vectors by removing specified
elements.
REPCHR() - Replace all occurrences of one character by another (in
/jhuapl)
REPSTR() - Replace all occurrences of one substring in a string by another.
SCREEN_SELECT - Allow user to interactively select from a list of strings
Used by the database software
SELECT_O - VT100 terminal branch of SCREEN_SELECT
SELECT_W - IDL widget branch of SCREEN_SELECT.
SPEC_DIR() - Complete specification of a file name using default disk & directory
STORE_ARRAY - Insert one array into another, adjusting dimensions if necessary
STREBCASC() - Convert an EBCDIC string scalar or vector to its ASCII equivalent
STRN() - Convert a number to a string and remove padded blanks.
STRNUMBER()- Determine whether a string is a valid numeric value.
TEXTOPEN - Open a file for text output as specified by !TEXTOUT
Controls the print output device for many procedures.
TEXTCLOSE - Close a file that had been opened by TEXTOPEN.
TRIM() - Convert numbers to strings, without trailing zeros.
TO_HEX() - Translate a decimal integer to a hex string. Called by
AIPSNAME.
VALID_NUM() - Determine if a string is a valid number (cf. STRNUMBER)
VECT() - Display a set of numbers to a string with delimiters
WHERENAN() - Find points equal to IEEE NaN (not a number) values
ZPARCHECK - Check the type and size of a parameter