Routines (alphabetical) > Routines: R > READ_WAVE

# READ_WAVE

The READ_WAVE procedure reads a `.wave` or `.bwave` file created by the Wavefront Advanced Data Visualizer into a series of IDL variables.

Note: READ_WAVE only preserves the structure of the variables if they are regularly gridded.

This routine is written in the IDL language. Its source code can be found in the file `read_wave.pro` in the `lib` subdirectory of the IDL distribution.

## Syntax

READ_WAVE, File, Variables, Names, Dimensions [, MESHNAMES=variable]

## Arguments

### File

A scalar string containing the name of the Wavefront file to read.

### Variables

A named variable that will contain a block of the variables contained in the wavefront file. Since each variable in a wavefront file can have more than one field (for instance, a vector variable has 3 fields), the fields of each variable make up the major index into the variable block. For instance, if a Wavefront file had one scalar variable and one vector variable, the scalar would be extracted as follows:

scalar_variable = variables[0,*,*,*]

and the vector variable would be extracted as follows:

vector_variable = variables[1:3,*,*,*]

To find the dimensions of the returned variable, see the description of the Dimensions argument.

### Names

A named variable that will contain the string names of each variable contained in the file.

### Dimensions

A named variable that will contain a long array describing how many fields in the large returned variable block each variable occupies. In the above example of one scalar variable followed by a vector variable, the dimension variable would be `[1,3]`.

This indicates that the first field of the returned variable block would be the scalar variable and the following 3 fields would comprise the vector variable.

## Keywords

### MESHNAMES

Set this keyword to a named variable that will contain the name of the mesh used in the Wavefront file for each variable.

## Version History

Pre-4.0 | Introduced

## See Also

WRITE_WAVE