Misc. Bugs & Problems

["Steve Scheele" <sscheele(at)scitor.com>]

I am running IDL V5.2 on WinNT and have encountered the following bugs and
problems. All have been discussed with RSI technical support.

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Problem: Sort slows down considerably when sorting integer arrays containing
many identical values.

Workaround: Add small-random values to the array before sorting - improves
sorting by 40X

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Bug: Passing a UINT array to REBIN crashes IDL

Workaround: Don't do that

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Bug: Resizing a draw widget, flips vertical sliders up side down.

Workaround: Pass an initial value to the slider - this workaround is
apparently machine/OS dependent. It didn't work for me.

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Problem: The IDL Code printer font size is proportional to, larger than, but
not the same size as display font. There is no independent control over the
printer font. Making the problem worse is fact that IDL prints line numbers
with the code. I use a 10pt display size which results in an 11.5pt print
size which runs the printed code off the right margin. As a result the IDL
code printer is worthless to me.

Workaround: Use another program to print the code - large pain!

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Problem: In spite of RSI documentation to the contrary, IDL has no true
global variables.

Workaround: User defined system variables - RSI really doesn't like this
workaround

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Bug: RANDOMN has a bug which can cause HISTOGRAM (with a variable BINSIZE)
to fail. When RANDOMN and HISTOGRAM are both in a long For loop, a "corrupt
array descriptor" error message is eventually displayed. This bug is related
to calling RANDOMN with an uninitialized or variable Seed.

Workaround: Pass BINSIZE as a string to HISTOGRAM

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Problem: TrueType display fonts look lousy

Workaround: None