Size of an IDL Structure Variable
QUESTION: How can I determine the size or length of an IDL structure variable in bytes?
ANSWER: This functionality, oddly enough, is provided by the N_Tags function and the Length keyword.
structSize = N_Tags(myStructure, /Length)
The length or size of a structure is machine dependent and depends upon the host machine. IDL pads and aligns structures in a manner consistent with the host machine's C compiler.
If you want the actual length of the data (without padding bytes), use the Data_Length keyword. The data length of any given structure will be the same on every machine architecture.
<Copyright © 1998-2004 David W. Fanning
Last Updated 3 June 2004