| Empty arrays? [message #63439] |
Mon, 10 November 2008 14:07  |
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Originally posted by: Demitri
Hello,
I'm starting to dig into IDL programming, and one thing I've found
particularly annoying is the lack of support for empty arrays. Although
I'm using IDL's OO capabilities, I find that I'm spending a lot of time
testing for return results where an empty array would be much more
suitable.
If I'm building an array that will have zero or more entries, I create
a variable, "insert" a dummy value, go through the code adding entries
based on whatever logic, then pop the top dummy value. But even then I
have to check that more than one entry is there so I dont throw an
error with a
return, a[1:*]
This is very basic functionality. Does anyone have a particularly
elegant... well, I'd say solution, but anything is obviously a
workaround. I don't want to fight the language, but I get the feeling
that IDL's philosophy is "yeah, you do it yourself. I can't be
bothered."
Cheers,
Demitri
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| Re: Empty arrays? [message #63547 is a reply to message #63439] |
Tue, 11 November 2008 14:41  |
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Originally posted by: Demitri
> I agree, IDL is sorely missing the concept of an "empty array." In
> fact it was one of my "Top IDL requests" in the year 2000 :-)
I can see they got right on that. :)
Thanks to Craig and Mike for the tips, and more importantly the code
saving me from having to do it myself!
Cheers,
Demitri
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| Re: Empty arrays? [message #63563 is a reply to message #63439] |
Tue, 11 November 2008 10:45 |
Craig Markwardt
Messages: 1869
Registered: November 1996
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Senior Member |
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On Nov 10, 5:07 pm, Demitri wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm starting to dig into IDL programming, and one thing I've found
> particularly annoying is the lack of support for empty arrays. Although
> I'm using IDL's OO capabilities, I find that I'm spending a lot of time
> testing for return results where an empty array would be much more
> suitable.
...
> This is very basic functionality. Does anyone have a particularly
> elegant... well, I'd say solution, but anything is obviously a
> workaround. I don't want to fight the language, but I get the feeling
> that IDL's philosophy is "yeah, you do it yourself. I can't be
> bothered."
I agree, IDL is sorely missing the concept of an "empty array." In
fact it was one of my "Top IDL requests" in the year 2000 :-)
When I need to manage arrays like lists (and deal with all the cases),
I tend to use my CMINSERT and CMDELETE functions. They more or less
condense the stupid crap-work into an easy-to-read function call. Of
course you sacrifice some performance, but I *tried* to make it
perform as well as I could.
Craig
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