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IDL Interface Guide: Introducing IDL |
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When IDL starts, it checks for the presence of a number of environment variables. If one of these environment variables exists, its value is used in one of two ways:
Preferences are internal values that control various aspects of the environment IDL presents to its users. While user preference values are most often retrieved from preference files, the value of any preference can be defined by setting an environment variable of the same name to the appropriate value. For example, to set the value of the IDL_PATH preference, which supplies the initial value of the !PATH system variable, you would define an environment variable named IDL_PATH.
If an environment variable corresponding to a preference exists, its value will be used as the value of that preference unless the value is explicitly overridden with a value set at the command line when invoking IDL. See IDL Preferences for a detailed description of IDL's preferences system and the precedence given to different sources for preference values.
IDL checks the following environment variables at startup, but does not use the values as the values of IDL preferences.
The Java Connectivity bridges use the value of the CLASSPATH environment variable to locate IDL-supplied and user-defined Java classes.
On UNIX platforms, IDL uses the DISPLAY environment variable to choose which X display is used to display graphics.
IDL uses the value of the HOME environment variable when storing user-specific information in the local file system.
| Note Under Microsoft Windows, the HOME environment variable might not be set in all cases. If it is not set, IDL first attempts to substitute the USERPROFILE environment variable (which usually looks something like C:\Documents and Settings\username where username is the login name of the current user). If USERPROFILE is not set, IDL uses the value of the first of the following it finds: the TEMP environment variable, the TMP environment variable, or the Windows system directory. |
The IDL export bridges check the value of the IDL_BRIDGE_DEBUG environment variable to enable or disable debugging support. Setting this environment variable to an appropriate value causes the Connectivity bridge to send debugging information that would typically appear in the IDL Output log to stdout. In addition, on Windows systems, debugging information is also written with the OutputDebugString() API, whose output can be captured by the Debug Monitor (DBMON.exe) tool (provided in the Platform SDK), Visual Studio, or the WinDbg debugger.
When IDL_BRIDGE_DEBUG is enabled, the following debug information is available:
This table below shows the valid values for the IDL_BRIDGE_DEBUG environment variable and their meanings:
All other values will be ignored. See either Debugging (COM) or Debugging (Java) in the IDL Connectivity Bridges manual for more information.
The IDL-Java bridge uses the value of the IDLJAVAB_CONFIG environment variable to locate the IDL-Java bridge configuration file. See Initializing the IDL-Java Bridge for additional details.
The IDL-Java bridge uses the value of the IDLJAVAB_LIB_LOCATION environment variable to determine which JVM shared library within a given Java version to use. See Initializing the IDL-Java Bridge for additional details.
On UNIX systems, the Java Connectivity bridges use the value of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to determine where IDL's shared library files are located.
IDL's FLEXlm-based license manager uses the value of the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to determine where to search for valid license files. Consult the license manager documentation for details.
When IDL asks for an operating system resource such as a shell, the executable file for that resource must be located in the operating system's path. While IDL itself does not use the value of the PATH environment variable explicitly, its value does affect IDL's behavior when attempting to launch other applications.
On UNIX platforms, IDL uses the environment variable TERM to determine the type of terminal in use when IDL is in command-line mode.
The process used to set environment variables varies depending on the operating system you are using.
On UNIX systems, environment variables are generally specified in a file read by your shell program at startup. Syntax for setting environment variables varies depending on the shell you are using, as does the file you use to specify the variables. If you are unsure how to set environment variables on your system, consult the system documentation or a system administrator.
For example, to set the environment variable IDL_PATH to the value /usr/local/idl when using a C shell (csh), you would add the following line to your .cshrc file:
setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE /usr/local/idl/license/license.dat
Similarly, to set the same variable when using a Bourne shell (sh), you would add the following lines to your .profile file:
LM_LICENSE_FILE="/usr/local/idl/license/license.dat" \ ; export LM_LICENSE_FILE
On Microsoft Windows systems, environment variables are set in the Environment Variables dialog, which is accessible from the System Control panel. Some Windows versions allow you to set environment variables either only for the user you logged in as ("user variables") or for all users ("system variables"). Setting IDL environment variables as user variables means that other users who log on to the computer will not have access to your environment variable values.
IDL Online Help (March 06, 2007)