read_fmr.pro

PURPOSE:
Given a machine readable table name and optionally 
column numbers, this FUNCTION reads the format information in the
meta-header and outputs a IDL function containing either the
complete table or only the requested columns.
CALLING SEQUENCE:
data = read_fmr(filename)
INPUTS:
filename [STRING]: the name of the file containing the machine
readable table. If filename is missing a dialog to select the
filename will be presented
KEYWORD PARAMETERS:
-help: if set show the help
-columns: [(array of) integers of strings] of column(s) to be returned.
If columns is of type integer they represent indices for which
column numbers to return, if they are strings the columns with the
corresponding names will be returned in the order as given.
-missingvalue [float]: value with which to replace the missing
values in the table default is NaN.
OUTPUTS:
The ouput data structure will look like:
  TYPE            STRING    'mr_structure'
  NAME            STRING    Array[X]
  UNIT            STRING    Array[X]
  DESCRIPTION     STRING    Array[X]
  DATA            STRUCT    ->  Array[1]
where name contains the names of each columns
unit contains the given units
description contains the short descriptions and
data holds the values of the separate columns are named, COLUMN0,
COLUMN1, ... , COLUMNX, where X stands for the total number of
columns read.
RESTRICTIONS:
The file to be read should be formatted as a machine readable datafile.

EXAMPLE:
meas = read_fmr('smith.dat',col=[2,5,6])
plot,meas.data.column1,ytitle=meas.name[1]+' ('+meas.unit[1]+')'

and

data = read_fmr('smith.dat',col=['Name','Date'])
print,meas.data.column0
MODIFICATION HISTORY:
Version 1:
Written by Sacha Hony (ESA) Nov 14 2003
Based heavily on mrcolextract by Greg Schwarz (AAS Journals
staff scientist) on 8/16/00.

Version 1.1:
Updated to be compatible with older versions of IDL.
Removed keyword /read from file_exist
Replaced strplit with str_sep
Fixed bug where column=[3,4] always returned the first few columns

Program has been sucessufully compiled and tested on IDL 5.2 running on a SUN Ultra 10.

Please contact the author, Sacha Hony, for questions or comments about this program.

Click here to download read_fmr.pro


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