Where to put (unix) DLMs?

[Craig Markwardt <craigmnet(at)cow.physics.wisc.edu>]

Let's say that I am distributing a package with a DLM.  Of course the
problem with DLMs is they can be both IDL version-dependent, and
architecture dependent.  At least mine is. :-) Let's say for the
moment can make a big library of binary DLM files for all the
architectures and IDL versions I know about.

The question is, where should the DLMs?  The nicest place would be the
IDL binary directory.  Of course that assumes that users have
permission to put things there.

Another thought is to have a separate "site" DLM directory.  That
requires the user to set their IDL_DLM_PATH environment variable
before running IDL.  This works, unless users are in heterogeneous
environment (ie, like my lab's), in which case they won't know *which*
directory to set it to ahead of time.  Sadly, the IDL system variable
!DLM_PATH cannot be set at runtime, so there is no way to discover it
on the fly.

Has anybody else run into this issue?  Should I just assume that users
will be able to write into their system $IDL_DIR/bin/bin.${arch}
directory?

Thanks,
Craig


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Craig B. Markwardt, Ph.D.         EMAIL:    craigmnet@cow.physics.wisc.edu
Astrophysics, IDL, Finance, Derivatives | Remove "net" for better response
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