Data Validation

["majewski" <majewski(at)cygnus.uwa.edu.au>]

Hi
Is it possible to speed up this process...

I have a system of instruments which feed their output into a data taker (15
second interval, for ~a week at a time). The data taker outputs a comma
delimited ascii file which I then process in IDL.
Occasionally the data taker, due to the harsh conditions it's under (in the
hull of a boat), drops characters - rendering the line corrupt.
I am trying to ensure that the data passed to the processing routine is
error free.

Currently my system does a str_sep(data_string, ',') to determine the number
of terms on a line. if its too few or too many (#<14<#) the line is dropped.
I then have an error check of each of the terms to see if they are floats
(and also in the valid ranges).

onerror, readnext
    convert to float, etc
readnext: ;-> returns to start of loop


anyway if it is possible to speed up this process (or I've gone about it the
wrong way) I'd like to know

leon Majewski