Conversion – Core Functionality
While the IDL and Python languages deliver similar syntax and features, core differences exists between the languages. Some core difference are abstract, and easily handled by Pike, but others require translation time logic adaptation. Details on the unique translation time modifications Pike performs is outlined in the following sections.
Data Types
While IDL provides a rich, extensive set of data types to support scientific computing operations, core Python provides three: integers, floating point and string data types. A full suite of data type is support is delivered to Python via the NumPy package.
Pike maps IDL data types to those provided by NumPy. The following table outlines the type matching used.