dfr2str

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It'd be nice to have a "dfr2str" command to switch back from DFREF to string. You could think of it as GetWavesDataFolder, but for DFREF's. In my view, this would be handy for printing out data folder paths in the command line or in message prompts.

Presently users can implement something along the lines of the following:
Function dfr2str(dfr)
  DFREF dfr

  String dfstr

  DFREF initialFolder = GetDataFolderDFR()
  SetDataFolder dfr
  dfstr = GetDataFolder(1)
  SetDataFolder initialFolder

  return dfstr
End


However, this is a sort of silly way to perform a task that is probably worthy of being built-in to Igor. Also, it'd be nice if it supported various output modes (similar to GetDataFolder). I'm conflicted about how it should handle invalid DFREF's; perhaps there should be yet another (optional?) parameter for permitting an invalid ref -- otherwise, by default, the function returns a null string.

Actually, it might not be a bad idea to replicate this sort of function for S/NVARS. Come to think of it, I could envision one all-encompassing function like "GlobalRef2str" that will take any global reference as input and spit out a string. Maybe this is a better approach.

Nick
As of Igor Pro 6.1, the GetDataFolder function takes an optional dfr parameter. I think it does what you want.

April 9, 2010 at 01:13 pm - Permalink