Installing IDL Astronomy Library

Tags linux

Summary

Install and configure the IDL Astronomy User's Library so that users can use it with IDL. IDL must be installed first!

The source code is stored on GitHub.

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Directions

  1. Install IDL.
  2. Navigate to the directory where idl is located: cd /usr/local/harris
  3. Download the library source code: git clone https://github.com/wlandsman/IDLAstro.git
  4. Add the path to the "pro" folder to the environment variable $IDL_PATH. As root, create the file /etc/profile.d/IDLAstro.sh with contents: 
    #!/usr/bin/env bash
if [ "x$IDL_PATH" = "x" ]; then
  export IDL_PATH=/usr/local/harris/IDLAstro/pro
else
  export IDL_PATH=$IDL_PATH:/usr/local/harris/IDLAstro/pro
fi
  5. As root, create the file /etc/profile.d/IDLAstro.csh with contents: 
    #!/usr/bin/env tcsh
if ( ${?IDL_PATH} ) then
  setenv IDL_PATH ${IDL_PATH}:/usr/local/harris/IDLAstro/pro
else
  setenv IDL_PATH /usr/local/harris/IDLAstro/pro
endif
Print Article