Re: Plea for IDL 2000 (was: a plea for more reliable mathematical routines)

[davidf(at)dfanning.com (David Fanning)]

Martin.Schultz@dkrz.de (m218003@modell3.dkrz.de) writes:

> As a start, here a short list of fundamentals that I would like to 
> see changed:
> 
> * Data types: The default integer should be 32 bit (if not even 64),
>    so you would get rid of many problems with loops and array indices.
>    For reading of binary files, a 2 byte integer should be kept as
>    SHORT.

New in IDL 5.3 (according to the on-line documentation in the beta
version is a "compile option" routine that can change the default
integer size from 16-bit to 32-bit:

   IDL> Compile_Opt DefInt32
   IDL> a = 0
   IDL> Help, a
      A    LONG   =  0 

Cheers,

David

P.S. Note there is NO comma after the COMPILE_OPT
command! Took me about 10 minutes to realize that. :-(

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155