Re: Problem with STRSPLIT using /EXTRACT

[thompson(at)orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov (William Thompson)]

Merrilinn Zeppa <zeppa@u.washington.edu> writes:

>I'm using version 5.3 of IDL.

>I tested a program in IDLDE using STRSPLIT with /EXTRACT. The program
>worked perfectly. I then incorporated my program in a larger IDL
>program, too large for IDLDE. From the IDL prompt, the tested program
>failed to compile, the error being the /EXTRACT keyword. I looked at the
>definition of strsplit.pro and found no reference to the keyword
>argument /EXTRACT. Anybody know about this?

>I tried looking this question up in the Google Usenet archive, but no
>luck. Is this the most uptodate location for the (truncated) Usenet
>archive?

>Marianne

>P.S. You should see what I got at www.dejavu.com!

It sounds like you're getting two different versions of the routine.  According
to the documentation for the version supplied by RSI:

;+
; NAME:
;       STRSPLIT
;
; PURPOSE:
;	Wrapper on the build in system routine STRTOK that implements exactly
;	the same interface as STRTOK, but with the STRSPLIT name.
;
;       The reason for doing this is so that if a user has their own
;	STRSPLIT in their local user library, their version will superceed
;	this one. RSI does not recommend this practice, but it is
;	allowed for backwards compatability reasons. ...


As I recall, this was because there used to be a routine called strsplit.pro in
one of the big IDL libraries.  Probably, you're getting different versions in
the path first, depending on whether you go through IDLDE or the command line
mode.  The version supplied by RSI has the /EXTRACT keyword, so if you change
your calls to use STRTOK instead, you should be okay.

Bill Thompson