Application Programming: Structures

Using HELP with Structures

Use the HELP,/STRUCTURE command to determine the type, structure, and tag name of each field in a structure. In the example above, a structure was stored into variable A. The statement,

HELP, /STRUCTURE, A  

prints the following information:

** Structure STAR, 4 tags, length=40:  
NAME            STRING    'SIRIUS'  
RA              FLOAT           30.0000  
DEC             FLOAT           40.0000  
INTEN           INT       Array(12)  

Using HELP with anonymous structures prints the structure's name as a unique number enclosed in angle brackets. Calling HELP with the STRUCTURE keyword and no parameters prints a list of all defined, named structure types and their tag names.

  IDL Online Help (March 06, 2007)