IDL/GDL magics for IPython using pIDLy.

At the command line, install pIDLy:

$ pip install pidly

In IPython, install idlmagic:

In [1]: %install_ext https://raw.github.com/ebellm/ipython-idlmagic/master/idlmagic.py

In Ipython, load the magics:

In [2]: %load_ext idlmagic

idlmagic will first look for the idl interpreter on the search path and fall back to gdl if it is not found.

The %idl magic enables one-line execution of idl commands in the IPython interpreter or notebook:

In [3]: %idl print, findgen(5)
      0.00000      1.00000      2.00000      3.00000      4.00000

Multi-line input can be entered with the %%idl cell magic:

In [4]: %%idl
   ...: x = findgen(5)
   ...: y = x^2.
   ...: ; comments are supported
   ...: print, $ ; as are line continuations
   ...:     mean(y)
   ...:
% Compiled module: MEAN.
      6.00000

The mechanisms for passing variables to and from IDL are based on those in the built-in %R and %octave magics.

Variables may be pushed from Python into IDL with %idl_push:

In [5]: msg = '  padded   string   '

In [6]: import numpy as np

In [7]: arr = np.arange(5)

In [8]: %idl_push msg arr

In [9]: %%idl
   ....: print, strcompress(msg,/REMOVE_ALL)
   ....: print, reverse(arr)
   ....:
paddedstring
                     4                     3                     2
                     1                     0

Similarly, variables can be pulled from IDL back to Python with %idl_pull:

In [10]: %idl arr += 1

In [11]: %idl_pull arr

In [12]: arr
Out[12]: array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])

Variables can also be pushed and pulled from IDL inline using the -i (or --input) and -o (or --output) flags:

In [13]: Z = np.array([1, 4, 5, 10])

In [14]: %idl -i Z -o W W = sqrt(Z)

In [15]: W
Out[15]: array([ 1.        ,  2.        ,  2.23606801,  3.1622777 ], dtype=float32)

Inline plots are displayed automatically by the IPython notebook. IDL Direct graphics are used. The optional -s width,height argument (or --size; default: 600,375) specifies the size of the resulting png image.

In [16]: %%idl -s 400,400
plot, findgen(10), xtitle='X', ytitle='Y'

• Only one plot can be rendered per cell
• Processing for possibly unused plot output slows execution
• Scalar variables from IDL may be returned as single-element Numpy arrays
• The %idl line magic fails with TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, dict found in IPython 0.13.2 and below due to a known bug; IPython 1.0 and later should work as expected.