Executing Dynamically-Created IDL Code

Executing Dynamically-Created IDL Code

The EXECUTE function compiles and executes one or more IDL statements contained in its string parameter during runtime. EXECUTE is limited by two factors:

Calls to EXECUTE cannot be nested, so a routine called by EXECUTE cannot use EXECUTE itself.

The need to compile the string at runtime makes EXECUTE inefficient in terms of speed.

The CALL_FUNCTION and CALL_PROCEDURE routines provide much of the functionality of EXECUTE without imposing these limitations and should be used in preference to EXECUTE when possible.

The result of the EXECUTE function is true (1) if the string was successfully compiled and executed. If an error occurred during either phase, the result is false (0). If an error occurs, an error message is printed.

Multiple statements in the string should be separated with the "&" character. GOTO statements and labels are not allowed.