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SETTING UP IDL 

1. If you don't have a copy already, down load the latest version of IDL from the ITT website (http://www.ittvis.com/idl/) and follow the installation instructions. Be aware that to use IDL you will need an IDL License. You will need to find out if/how this license works at your institute. If no license is available then consider using GDL.
2. Once IDL and license are installed we recommend that you creat a .idlrc file in your home space that will be use to , for example, set the IDL paths.  First you will need to add the following lines to file that initialises your terminal application.
   • For Mac and Linux shell (e.g initialised using .tcshrc) add the following lines to your .tcshrc file:

     # setup idl

     source /Applications/itt/idl70/bin/idl_setup

                                  setenv IDL_STARTUP ${HOME}/.idlrc 
3. Download and unpack the latest version of iCosmo
   • Find the latest version of iCosmo here: http://icosmo.pbwiki.com/Source-Code

   • To unpack on Mac:

     open icosmo_vx.tar.zip

     tar -xvf icosmo_vx.tar

      

4. For Mac the .idlrc file should look something like (the section in red needs to be replaced by the path to your copy of iCosmo):

   device,decompose=0

   !PATH=!PATH+':'+expand_path('+/Users/usename/icosmo/')+':'

5. You should now be ready to calculation a Fisher matrix. 
   1. Start IDL by typing IDL at the command prompt
   2. type: fid=set_fiducial()
   3. type : cosmo=mk_cosmo(fid) ; Calculate basic cosmology quantities
6. You're Done!

Notes for a Unix (Debian) System  (Tom)

On a networked machine need to find where your IDL preference/setup file is located.  This will either be called idl_setup or idl.pref.

This may be under the .idl directory from your home space i.e.

~/.idl/itt/pref-10-idl_6_4-unix/idl.pref

In the .cshrc file add:

source ~/.idl/itt/pref-10-idl_6_4-unix/idl.pref

setenv IDL_STARTUP ${HOME}/.idlrc 

 Create a new file .idlrc in the home space and add:

device,decompose=0

!PATH=!PATH+':'+expand_path('+~/code/iCosmo/')+':'

where ~/code/iCosmo/ is the path to the top level of the iCosmo directory.

Key

• red - Commands you can type into IDL
• green - What IDL print
• blue - other, e.g. keywords