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Usage of System Variables [message #18160]

Thu, 02 December 1999 00:00

Liam Gumley
Messages: 473
Registered: November 1994

Senior Member

A colleague and I were having a discussion recently about system
variables in IDL. My colleague regularly uses system variables such as
!p.region, !p.font, !p.margin for configuring plots. My opinion is that
system variables should be used as little as possible. In fact the only
system variable I ever modify is !p.multi for creating multiple plots.
Otherwise I prefer to use keywords to plot, surface, tv, tvscl, etc.

It seems to me that modifying global system variables is not a good
idea, since they have a global effect. These days you can write
applications which run while leaving the IDL command line active, and
setting/modifying system variables in this case sounds like a recipe for
disaster.

Can anyone think of other cases where setting a system variable is the
only way to achieve the desired effect (e.g. !p.multi)?

Cheers,
Liam.

--
Liam E. Gumley
Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/~gumley

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[Message index]

		Usage of System Variables By: Liam Gumley on Thu, 02 December 1999 00:00
		Re: Usage of System Variables By: davidf on Wed, 08 December 1999 00:00
		Re: Usage of System Variables By: edward.s.meinel on Wed, 08 December 1999 00:00
		Re: Usage of System Variables By: m218003 on Tue, 07 December 1999 00:00
		Re: Usage of System Variables By: davidf on Mon, 06 December 1999 00:00
		Re: Usage of System Variables By: m218003 on Mon, 06 December 1999 00:00

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