Subsections
The current version of the HEALPix package provides
an IDL startup file which defines various environment
variables for your convenience, and adds the HEALPix
IDL directory tree to your IDL_PATH. In order to utilise
this feature, the user should invoke IDL using the
commands hidl or hidlde which are aliases defined in the
HEALPix profile created during the installation process
for the package (see the Installation Document).
Using HEALPix-IDL together with other IDL libraries
Many users want to use HEALPix-IDL routines at the same time as other (home made
or third party1)
IDL routines. There are several ways to achieve this:
– with hidl:
before starting hidl or hidlde, (re)define the environment variable $IDL_PATH so that it looks like:
”+/path/to/my/idl/routines:+/path/to/other/idl/routines:<IDL_DEFAULT>”
(where <IDL_DEFAULT> should be typed literally and the +/path means that
subdirectories of path will be searched recursively). For example, if
young Albert types in Bourne shell:
export IDL_PATH=”+/home/aeinstein/brownian:<IDL_DEFAULT>”
hidl
he will start an IDL session in which the HEALPix-IDL routines are accessible, followed by all those located
in subdirectories of /home/aeinstein/brownian, followed by the standard
IDL routines. If .pro files of the same name are avaible at the different locations, the first
one encountered will prevail;
– without hidl:
before starting IDL, the environment variables $IDL_PATH and $IDL_STARTUP must be defined. For instance, to emulate under (ba)sh the behavior of hidl shown above, the same (bolder) Albert will type:
export IDL_PATH=”+${HEALPIX}/src/idl:+/home/aeinstein/brownian:<IDL_DEFAULT>”
export IDL_STARTUP=”+${HEALPIX}/src/idl/HEALPix_startup”
idl
FL users will do exactly the same thing, replacing hidl with hfl and idl with fl64_cmd (or fl32_cmd).
As for GDL users, they will replace
hidl, IDL_PATH and IDL_STARTUP above
with hgdl, GDL_PATH and GDL_STARTUP respectively,
while <IDL_DEFAULT> must be replaced by the default value of ${GDL_PATH}.
Of course, ${HEALPIX}/src/idl (and all the + signs) remain unchanged.
See the sections
”Using GDL instead of IDL” or
”Using FL instead of IDL”
in the Installation Document
for more information on these topics.
Version 3.83, 2024-11-13
