Re: Am I stupid?

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

"Liam E. Gumley" <Liam.Gumley@ssec-nospam.wisc.edu> writes:

> Colin Rosenthal wrote:
> > so is there a sensible way around this? What I'm actually trying to
> > do is to have a keyword AXISCOLOR in a routine that also accepts
> > the AX keyword. I know I could call it something different but am I
> > just being a whiny luser if I think the above code should work
> > as is?
> 
> Colin,
> 
> According to the IDL documentation:
> 
> "Keywords can be abbreviated to their shortest unique length"
> 
> In your case, the keyword AX precludes the use of another keyword which
> begins with the letters "AX". A good rule of thumb is to make the first
> 3 characters of each keyword unique.


Not that this doesn't frustrate the heck out of me sometimes.  There
are many times where I want keywords like TIME, TIMEUNIT, TIMESTEP,
and so on.  My suggestion is that the above policy should hold,
*unless* there is an exact match to a specific keyword.

Craig

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