1.12) IDL Command Line

Everything that we have done so far could have been entered directly at the IDL "command line" (the IDL> prompt).

Being able to do things on the command line is one of the great strengths of IDL. You can for example read some data in using some quite complex code, and then play around on the command line to see what you have and decide how you want to plot it. It also makes it very easy to debug, you can put a "stop" in a program, check it's progress and then continue using ".con". You can also type help at the command line to get a list of variables and compiled functions and procedures in your current session.