Overview

You can run IDL in non-interactive mode (batch mode) by entering the character @ followed by the name of a file containing IDL executive commands and statements. Commands and statements are executed in the order they are contained in the file, as if they had been entered at the IDL command prompt.

Batch execution can be terminated before the end of the file, with control returning to interactive mode without exiting IDL, by calling the STOP procedure from the batch file. Calling the EXIT procedure from the batch procedure has the usual effect of terminating IDL.

To enter batch mode from the interactive mode, enter:

@filename 

at the IDL prompt, where filename is the name of the batch file. (Note that the @ symbol must be the first character on the line in order for it to be interpreted properly.) IDL reads commands from the specified file until the end of the file is reached. Batch files can be nested by placing a call to one batch file within another.

If filename does not include a file extension, IDL searches the current working directory and the directories specified by the !PATH system variable for a file with filename as its base, with the file extension .pro. If filename.pro is not found in a given directory, IDL searches for filename with no extension in that directory. If filename is found (with or without the .pro extension), the file is executed and the search ends. If filename includes a full path specification, IDL does not search the directories in !PATH.