i2py: Convert IDL programs and scripts to Python
i2py provides tools for converting programs and scripts written in Research System Inc.'s IDL programming language to Python. It is not an IDL-compatible front end for the Python interpreter, nor does it make any attempt to replicate the functionality of the IDL standard library. Rather, its only purpose is to perform source-to-source conversion of legacy IDL code to Python. It supports procedural IDL, with some support for object-oriented code, as long as it is not too complex. More sophistication may be added in the future.
i2py is free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. See the file COPYING for details.
This is an alpha release of i2py. Although the code is functional, not all IDL language constructs can be converted yet, and the entire package needs extensive testing and debugging before it will be ready for production use.
That said, if you're willing to try it out, any feedback (comments, bug reports, patches) will be greatly appreciated. Please e-mail it to Chris Stawarz chris@pseudogreen.org or Tom Grydeland tom.grydeland@norut.no.
i2py requires Python 2.3 or later. The package is written in pure Python, so it should run on any system with an appropriate version of the Python interpreter installed.
i2py uses the excellent PLY package (http://www.dabeaz.com/ply/) to handle lexing and parsing. The needed modules are distributed with i2py, so there is no need to install PLY separately.
The scripts produced by i2py require one of the array packages available for Python. Currently, Numpy is the default. For a discussion of the various packages available, see http://numeric.scipy.org/.
To install the package, all you should need to do is
python setup.py install
See "Installing Python Modules" (http://docs.python.org/inst/inst.html) for more information on using setup.py scripts.
Web site: http://software.pseudogreen.org/i2py/
IDL to Numeric/numarray Mapping: http://www.johnny-lin.com/cdat_tips/tips_array/idl2num.html
Related software: Numerical Python: http://numeric.scipy.org/ PLY: http://www.dabeaz.com/ply/ Python: http://python.org/