How to explore and use the content of a data .sav file in IDL?

 

Before restoring a .sav file which is only including variables you may want to explore its content first. This is possible using the IDL_Savefile object class

 

; select your data .sav file

f=dialog_pickfile()

; create the IDL_Savefile object from this .sav file and query its content

sObj=IDL_Savefile(f)

content=sObj.Contents()

; you can then access the number of variables included in this .sav file

; as well as the variable names

print,content.N_VAR

foreach Name, sObj.Names() do print,Name,sObj.size(Name)

; you can then decide to restore only specific variables based on their names

data=sObj.Names()

sObj.restore,(data[0])

 

Another useful option is to convert specific variable names into a variable identifier using SCOPE_VARFETCH, so you can then manipulate this variable in your IDL code afterwards

b=SCOPE_VARFETCH(data[0])

help,b

 

 

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Created by BC on 1/19/21

Reviewed by BC(US) on 1/21/2021