IDL

Description
IDL is the ideal, timesaving solution for data analysis, data visualization, and software application development. From quick-look analysis and display to commercial programming projects, IDL combines the technology and tools you need with a modern, extensible environment. IDL requires less code and programming expertise to produce dynamic visualizations and analyses, or to develop powerful software applications
Site	Version (Latest: v7.0)	Notes
ngs.rl.ac.uk	v7.0	64 bit

On this page:

1. License
2. Running on the NGS (general)
   • Submission using the UI-WMS
   • Submission using the NGS portal
   • Submission using Globus
   • If all else fails submission
3. Compilation Information
4. Further Information

License

IDL is commercial software. If you are interested in using IDL , please e-mail the NGS Helpdesk to register.

Users of this application should credit the NGS accordingly and where applicable the specific site where the code is installed, when publishing work using NGS resources.

Running IDL on the NGS (General)

There a multiple ways in which jobs can be launched on the NGS however the graphical user interfaces for IDL are not supported. All jobs must be submitted as batch files as below

The examples below all use an example which requires two files: "run_sqrd.pro" and "squared_arry.pro" which can be found at:

gsiftp://ngs.rl.ac.uk:2811/apps/idl/examples/run_sqrd.pro

gsiftp://ngs.rl.ac.uk:2811/apps/idl/examples/squared_arry.pro

• Submission Using the UI/WMS

  If you are not familiar with the UI/WMS, please complete both tutorials linked from the NGS UI/WMS page before submiting an IDL job. If you have completed those; to submit an IDL job, login to the UI and create a JDL file, as below, in a subdirectory called "idl", replacing ngsxxx by your local userid when logged into ngsui03.ngs.ac.uk in the JDL file. Download the two example files above into this directory, then submit using:

  glite-wms-job-submit -o jobIDs -a abc.jdl

  Type = "Job";
  JobType = "normal";
  Executable = "/usr/ngs/IDL"; 
  Arguments = "run_sqrd";
  StdOutput = "StdOut.txt";
  StdError = "StdErr.txt";
  Myproxyserver= "myproxy.ngs.ac.uk";
  InputSandbox = {"run_sqrd.pro","squared_arry.pro"};
  InputSandboxBaseURI = "gsiftp://ngsui03.ngs.ac.uk:2811/home/ngsxxxx/idl";
  OutputSandbox = {"StdOut.txt","StdErr.txt"};
  OutputSandboxBaseDestURI = "gsiftp://ngsui03.ngs.ac.uk:2811/home/ngsxxxx/idl";
  Requirements = (
       member("NGS-UEE-IDL", other.GlueHostApplicationSoftwareRunTimeEnvironment)
  );
  Rank = other.GlueCEStateFreeCPUs;
  ShallowRetryCount = -1;

  The output file StdOut.txt contains a simple IDL text output result from the job.

• NGS Web Portal Submission

After logging in to the NGS Portal, select the "IDL" template under the " Data Analysis" category and make the amendments appropriate for your specific job. Read the description page of the template for further details.

• Submission Using Globus

Copy or stage the two example files noted above from ngs.rl.ac.uk into /home/ngsxxxx/idl replacing ngsxxx by your account number when logged into ngs.rl.ac.uk.

Use the following globus command (one line):

globusrun -b -r ngs.rl.ac.uk/jobmanager-lsf \
'&(executable=/usr/ngs/IDL)(jobtype=single) \
(arguments= run_sqrd) \
(directory=/home/ngsxxxx/idl) \
(stderr=/home/ngsxxxx/idl/StdErr.txt) \
(stdout=/home/ngsxxxx/idl/StdOut.txt)'

The output file StdOut.txt contains a simple IDL text output to stdout.

• Example local submission of IDL

The above methods are prefered and supported but if for some reason these do not work, you can test that at least the IDL part of the jobs is running by a local submission on ngs.rl.ac.uk (only). Copy or stage the example file from /apps/idl/examples/run_sqrd.pro , squared_arry.pro into /home/ngsxxx/idl , as above.

Use the following bsub command (one line):

cd /home/ngsxxxx/idl
bsub -o StdOut.txt -e StdErr.txt -W 1:00 /usr/ngs/IDL run_sqrd

Compilation Information for ngs.rl.ac.uk

IDL is commerical code supplied as precompiled executables.

Further Information

Online documentation for IDL.