| Re: Unhelpful Help Messages [message #67802] |
Fri, 28 August 2009 00:57  |
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Maarten[1]
Messages: 176
Registered: November 2005
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Senior Member |
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On Aug 28, 2:57 am, Jeremy Bailin <astroco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 26, 6:22 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Folks,
>
>> Having spent more time this week than I wanted to learning
>> that "too many array elements" really means "you are
>> *totally* confusing me with that binsize that isn't
>> really a number", I thought I might work on an article
>> this weekend on "Unhelpful Help Messages".
>
>> This could be one of those articles that grows over time,
>> but I thought I might ask if anyone else has a favorite
>> Unhelpful Help Message they would like to share. Another
>> one I deal with on an almost weekly basis is a "syntax
>> error" when someone hasn't put the Coyote Library on their
>> IDL path correctly. This one particularly confuses new
>> users.
>
>> Any others?
>
>> Cheers,
>
>> David
>> --
>> David Fanning, Ph.D.
>> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming (www.dfanning.com)
>> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
>
> This is one that makes sense to me, but is probably the top confused
> question I get from people:
>
> % Loop limit expression too large for loop variable type.
>
> (e.g. "for i=0,500000" instead of "for i=0L,500000")
For new users, I always put
compile_opt defint32, strictarr, strictarrsubs
in the idl startup script. That at least covers the command-line. I
wish there was an option to enforce this throughout a session, but
instructing them to use
compile_opt idl2
in each function and procedure isn't too hard.
Maarten
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