; This procedure demonstrates the findgen, n_elements, and size commands in IDL

PRO array_character

; The n_elements function returns the numbe of elements in an array
array = FINDGEN(32, 32)
help, array
print, 'number of elements in array:', n_elements(array)

; what happens if the array is not defined?
help, arr
print, 'number of elements in arr:',n_elements(arr)

; the size function returns a long vector that conatins the size and type information about 
; an array.  Optional keywords n_dimensions, dimensions, type, tname, and n_elements return 
; the number of dimensions, dimension sizes, type code, type name, and number of
; elements respectively.

array = indgen(256, 256)
help, array
print, 'Size of array is:', size(array)
print, '# of dimensions in array:', size(array, /n_dimensions)
print, 'dimension sizes of array:', size(array, /dimensions)
print, 'type code of array:', size(array, /type)
print, 'type name of array:', size(array, /tname)
print, 'number of elements in array:', size(array, /n_elements)




END