Gdl

GDL is a free open-source version of IDL. Currently, GDL does not support GUI widgets therefore things like the hessi GUI will not work in GDL.

Installing

Mac OS X

The source code for GDL can be obtained from the GDL homepage. This source code needs to be compiled in order to create a gdl executable. Unfortunately, GDL uses many libraries which are not available with a standard installation of Mac OS X. Some programs such as Macports can make this process easier and will automatically obtain all of the libraries necessary to compile GDL.

1. Install Apple's XCode. This will install many important libraries as well as install a compiler, gcc.
2. Install macports.
3. Run the following command which will (by default) install gdl in /opt/local/bin/

sudo port install gnudatalanguage

1. You should now be able to run gdl by typing "gdl" in the Terminal.
2. Create a symbolic link to gdl with the following command.

ln -s /opt/local/bin/gdl /opt/local/bin/idl

1. You should now...

References

• GDL - GNU Data Language
• SSWIDL