I've written a program in IDL to generate scatter plots based on command line arguments. I can successfully call the program directly in the terminal like this:
idl -e "scatterplot_1_2d_file.pro" $infile $outfile $title $xtitle $ytitle $xmin $xmax $ymin $ymax $timescale
Where $* refer to some string literals typed in. The problem is, I thought I'd be able to just type that very line, putting in variable names in place of the literals, into a bash script, and generate a million scatter plots while I'm on break. Unfortunately, if I do it that way, I get the error:
idl: -e option cannot be specified with batch files
So my next attempt was to try writing those commands to an IDL batch file that I'd then run.
That attempt looks like this:
#!/bin/bash
indir=/path/to/indir/
outdir=/path/to/outdir/
files=`ls $indir`
batchfile=/path/to/tempbatchfile.pro
echo .r "/path/to/scatterplot_1_2d_file.pro" >> $batchfile
for file in $files
do
name=${file%\.*}
echo scatterplot_1_2d_file $indir$name.txt $outdir$name.jpg $name "Gauge Precipitation (mm)" "NMQ Precipitation (mm)" "*" "*" "*" "*" 2 >> $batchfile
done #done file
echo exit >> $batchfile
idl <<EOF
@/path/to/scatterplot_1_2d_file
EOF
rm $batchfile
I don't know if the bulk of the errors that script generates are relevant, so I'll just post the start and I'll post the rest later if you need it:
[foo]$ bash script_thing.sh
IDL Version 6.3 (linux x86 m32). (c) 2006, Research Systems, Inc.
Installation number: 91418.
Licensed for personal use by XXXXXXXXX only.
All other use is strictly prohibited.
PRO scatterplot_1_2d_file
^
% Programs can't be compiled from single statement mode.
At: /path/to/scatterplot_1_2d_file.pro, Line 1
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 1)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 2)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 3)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 4)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 5)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 6)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 7)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 8)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
% Attempt to subscript ARGS with <INT ( 9)> is out of range.
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
I don't know if I'm just trying to do something that can't be done, but it doesn't SEEM like it. Any advice?
There are two ways to go about this: using COMMAND_LINE_ARGS or constructing a valid IDL routine call. This routine uses both:
pro test, other_args
compile_opt strictarr
args = command_line_args(count=nargs)
help, nargs
if (nargs gt 0L) then print, args
help, other_args
if (n_elements(other_args) gt 0L) then print, other_args
end
Call it from the command line in either of the following two ways:
Desktop$ idl -e "test" -args $MODE
IDL Version 8.2, Mac OS X (darwin x86_64 m64). (c) 2012, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Inc.
Installation number: 216855.
Licensed for use by: Tech-X Corporation
% Compiled module: TEST.
NARGS LONG = 1
test
OTHER_ARGS UNDEFINED = <Undefined>
Desktop$ idl -e "test, '$MODE'"
IDL Version 8.2, Mac OS X (darwin x86_64 m64). (c) 2012, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Inc.
Installation number: 216855.
Licensed for use by: Tech-X Corporation
% Compiled module: TEST.
NARGS LONG = 0
OTHER_ARGS STRING = 'test'
test