reading file into structure?

[Randall Skelton <rhskelto(at)atm.ox.ac.uk>]

Hi all,

I am having a rather silly problem with reading in a simple ASCII file
directly into an IDL structure.  Below is a simple procedure
'testread' and a sample ASCII file 'testfile'.  NB: I've removed all the
error checking and striped down the procedure to limit its size...

What I want to do is read in data on line 20 directly into the data.values
but for some reason all I get are zeros in the 'values' array. If I read
the data directly into a float array, there is no problem?  I am at a loss
here?

pro testread, file, data
    sgas = '*TEST'
    l = STRLEN(sgas)
    OPENR, 1, file
    header = '!'
    nlev = 0

    WHILE STRMID(header,0,1) EQ '!' DO READF, 1, header
    READS, header, nlev

    ;data = fltarr(nlev)           ;change comments if testing array
    data = {basic_struct, comment: ' ', values: fltarr(nlev)}

    WHILE STRMID(header,0,l) NE sgas DO BEGIN
      READF, 1, header
      IF STRLEN(header) LT l THEN header = header + ' '
      header = STRUPCASE(header)
    ENDWHILE
    ;READF, 1, data                 ;<-- this works.
    READF, 1, data.values           ;<-- why doesn't this work?
    CLOSE, 1
END

-------------- testfile -------------
! Comments here
! Another line of comments
  50
*blah [units]
       0.0,       1.0,       2.0,       3.0,       4.0,
       5.0,       6.0,       7.0,       8.0,       9.0,
      10.0,      11.0,      12.0,      13.0,      14.0,
      15.0,      16.0,      17.0,      18.0,      19.0,
      20.0,      21.0,      22.0,      23.0,      24.0,
      25.0,      27.5,      30.0,      32.5,      35.0,
      37.5,      40.0,      42.5,      45.0,      47.5,
      50.0,      55.0,      60.0,      65.0,      70.0,
      75.0,      80.0,      85.0,      90.0,      95.0,
     100.0,     105.0,     110.0,     115.0,     120.0
*nextblah [units]
 1.013E+03, 8.988E+02, 7.950E+02, 7.012E+02, 6.166E+02,
 5.405E+02, 4.722E+02, 4.111E+02, 3.565E+02, 3.080E+02,
 2.650E+02, 2.270E+02, 1.940E+02, 1.658E+02, 1.417E+02,
 1.211E+02, 1.035E+02, 8.850E+01, 7.565E+01, 6.467E+01,
 5.529E+01, 4.729E+01, 4.047E+01, 3.467E+01, 2.972E+01,
 2.549E+01, 1.743E+01, 1.197E+01, 8.010E+00, 5.746E+00,
 4.150E+00, 2.871E+00, 2.060E+00, 1.491E+00, 1.090E+00,
 7.978E-01, 4.250E-01, 2.190E-01, 1.090E-01, 5.220E-02,
 2.400E-02, 1.050E-02, 4.460E-03, 1.840E-03, 7.600E-04,
 3.200E-04, 1.450E-04, 7.100E-05, 4.010E-05, 2.540E-05
*TEST [md]
    288.20,    281.70,    275.20,    268.70,    262.20,
    255.70,    249.20,    242.70,    236.20,    229.70,
    223.30,    216.80,    216.70,    216.70,    216.70,
    216.70,    216.70,    216.70,    216.70,    216.70,
    216.70,    217.60,    218.60,    219.60,    220.60,
    221.60,    224.00,    226.50,    230.00,    236.50,
    242.90,    250.40,    257.30,    264.20,    270.60,
    270.70,    260.80,    247.00,    233.30,    219.60,
    208.40,    198.60,    188.90,    186.90,    188.40,
    195.10,    208.80,    240.00,    300.00,    360.00
*lastblah [units]
 7.745E+03, 6.071E+03, 4.631E+03, 3.182E+03, 2.158E+03,
 1.397E+03, 9.254E+02, 5.720E+02, 3.667E+02, 1.583E+02,
 6.996E+01, 3.613E+01, 1.906E+01, 1.085E+01, 5.927E+00,
 5.000E+00, 3.950E+00, 3.850E+00, 3.825E+00, 3.850E+00,
 3.900E+00, 3.975E+00, 4.065E+00, 4.200E+00, 4.300E+00,
 4.425E+00, 4.575E+00, 4.725E+00, 4.825E+00, 4.900E+00,
 4.950E+00, 5.025E+00, 5.150E+00, 5.225E+00, 5.250E+00,
 5.225E+00, 5.100E+00, 4.750E+00, 4.200E+00, 3.500E+00,
 2.825E+00, 2.050E+00, 1.330E+00, 8.500E-01, 5.400E-01,
 4.000E-01, 3.400E-01, 2.800E-01, 2.400E-01, 2.000E-01
-------------- EOF -------------