The FLOAT function converts a given Expression into a single-precision floating-point value.
Result = FLOAT( Expression [, Offset [, D1 [, ..., D8]]] )
Returns the conversion of the given expression into single-precision floating point values. If Expression is a complex number, FLOAT returns the real part.
The expression to be converted to single-precision floating-point.
Offset from beginning of the Expression data area. Specifying this argument allows fields of data extracted from Expression to be treated as single-precision floating point data.
When extracting fields of data, the Di arguments specify the dimensions of the result. If no dimension arguments are given, the result is taken to be scalar.
The Di arguments can be either an array or a series of scalar expressions specifying the dimensions of the result. If a single argument is specified, it can be either a scalar expression or an array of up to eight elements. If multiple arguments are specified, they must all be scalar expressions. Up to eight dimensions can be specified.
When converting from a string argument, it is possible that the string does not contain a valid floating-point value and no conversion is possible. The default action in such cases is to print a warning message and return 0. The ON_IOERROR procedure can be used to establish a statement to be jumped to in case of such errors.
This routine is written to make use of IDL's thread pool, which can increase execution speed on systems with multiple CPUs. The values stored in the
If A contains the integer value 6, it can be converted to floating-point and stored in the variable B by entering:
B = FLOAT(A)
Introduced: Original
BYTE, COMPLEX, DCOMPLEX, DOUBLE, FIX, LONG, LONG64, STRING, UINT, ULONG, ULONG64