GETOPT

       Convert a string supplied by the user into a valid scalar or vector

       Distinct elements in the string may be
       separated by either a comma or a space.  The output scalar
       or vector can be specified to be  either  integer or floating
       point.   A null string is converted to a zero.

     option = GETOPT( input, [ type, numopt, COUNT = ])

       input   - string that was input by user in response to a prompt
               Arithmetic operations can be included in the string (see
               examples)

       type    - Either an "I" (integer) or an "F" (floating point) specifying
               the datatype of the output vector.  Default is floating point
       numopt  - number of values expected by calling procedure
               If less than NUMOPT values are supplied the output
               vector will be padded with zeros.

       option  - scalar or vector containing the numeric conversion of
               the fields in the string INPUT.  If NUMOPT is not
               supplied, the number of elements in OPTION will
               equal the number of distinct fields in INPUT.

       Count - integer giving the number of values actually returned by
               GETOPT.   If the input is invalid then COUNT is set to -1

       (1) If an input is invalid, Count is set to -1 and the result is set
               to 999.
       (2) GETOPT uses the execute function to interpret the user string.
               Therefore GETOPT itself cannot be called with the EXECUTE
               function.
       (3) GETOPT has a hard limit of 10 tokens in the input string.

       (1)   a = getopt( '3.4,5*4 ', 'I' )    yields   a = [ 3, 20]
       (2)   a = getopt( '5/2.', 'F', 5)      yields   a = [2.5,0.,0.,0.,0.]
       (3)   a = getopt( '2*3,5,6')           yields   a = [6.,5.,6.]

       written by B. Pfarr, STX, 5/6/87
       change value of !ERR W. Landsman   STX,  6/30/88
       Converted to IDL V5.0   W. Landsman   September 1997

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