| Re: Preferences gone mad [message #73576] |
Thu, 18 November 2010 17:59 |
penteado
Messages: 866
Registered: February 2018
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Senior Member
Administrator |
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On Nov 18, 6:32 pm, Michael Galloy <mgal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Am I going mad? Am I missing something?
>
> Preference values can come from several locations, in order of priority:
>
> 1. the command line when starting IDL
> 2. an environment variable
> 3. the IDL distribution preference file
> 4. a user preference file
> 5. the default value
>
> IDL uses the value from the highest priority location. So, here, the
> environment variable is trumping the user preference file.
>
> The lesson: pick one method of setting preferences and stick to it. This
> is one reason why I have a slightly complicated system to set my path
> using preferences instead of using an environment variable.
As it turns out, I was going mad, and it was because I was missing
something.
I had not used an environment variable for the path in so many years I
forgot the priorities, and was assuming that the preferences were
appended to the environment value, not replaced by it. And the problem
showed up because I had set up an environment variable in the global
bashrc to put gpulib in the path for all users.
Thanks a lot, my sanity is restored.
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| Re: Preferences gone mad [message #73578 is a reply to message #73576] |
Thu, 18 November 2010 12:32  |
Michael Galloy
Messages: 1114
Registered: April 2006
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Senior Member |
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On 11/18/10 12:07 PM, Paulo Penteado wrote:
>
> It appears that a previously well behaved IDL installation has gone
> crazy with preference setting for one user. For other users on the
> same computer, things look normal. And the same seems to occur from
> the Workbench or the command line:
>
> IDL> p=pref_get('IDL_PATH')
> IDL> print,p
> +/usr/local/gpulib:<IDL_DEFAULT>
> IDL> p+=':+/some_directory/'
> IDL> print,p
> +/usr/local/gpulib:<IDL_DEFAULT>:+/some_directory/
> IDL> pref_set,'IDL_PATH',p,/commit
> IDL> print,pref_get('IDL_PATH')
> +/usr/local/gpulib:<IDL_DEFAULT>:+/some_directory/
> IDL> exit
>
> Then, from a new session:
>
> IDL> print,pref_get('IDL_PATH')
> +/usr/local/gpulib:<IDL_DEFAULT>
>
> Where did the new preference go?
>
> The preferences file was updated; it contains:
>
> IDL_PATH : +/usr/local/gpulib:<IDL_DEFAULT>:+/some_directory/
>
> The same happens if I change the path from the Workbench. It seems
> that IDL is ignoring the preferences file. I already removed the
> entire .idl directory, to let it be recreated, and it made no
> difference. The gpulib directory shows up because there is an IDL_PATH
> environment variable.
>
> Am I going mad? Am I missing something?
Preference values can come from several locations, in order of priority:
1. the command line when starting IDL
2. an environment variable
3. the IDL distribution preference file
4. a user preference file
5. the default value
IDL uses the value from the highest priority location. So, here, the
environment variable is trumping the user preference file.
The lesson: pick one method of setting preferences and stick to it. This
is one reason why I have a slightly complicated system to set my path
using preferences instead of using an environment variable.
Mike
--
www.michaelgalloy.com
Research Mathematician
Tech-X Corporation
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