IDL has updated their status to allow reading of IDL SAV data
files from other languages.  This implementation is based on
a 3rd party spec by Craig Markwardt based on the IDL 4.x and 5.x
save files.  It cannot read save files created by IDL 8.x.

+------------------------------------------------------------------+

From Joe Hourcle, who worked to get permission to distribute
this code:


In January of 2011, our group had a meeting with our NASA account
rep, Amanda O'Connor. I brought up that they had announced at
the IDL User Meeting at either the 2009 or 2010 Fall AGU Meeting
that there was now a python library to read IDL save files, and I
asked what was the process to be allowed to read them from Perl.

This was the response that I received. ...

-Joe


Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Thomas Harris" <tharris@ittvis.com>
> Date: February 3, 2011 12:29:18 PM EST
> To: <oneiros@grace.nascom.nasa.gov>, ...
> Cc: "Amanda O'Connor" <amandao@ittvis.com>
> Subject: FW: ITT-VIS meeting Follow-up
>
> Hi all:
> My name is Thomas Harris and I'm working with Amanda this year on NASA.
> Amanda and I checked in to your questions regarding IDL SAV files with
> our Product Management.  Here is their response:
>
> "...We are perfectly fine with people wanting to read IDL save files
> with Data in them, in whatever language they want - IDL, Matlab, Perl,
> Python.
>
> Finally, we are going to remove the Copyright restriction from data Save
> files (probably in IDL 8.1), but keep it in for code Save files. That
> way there should be no confusion."
>
> Let me know if you have any additional questions.
> Best regards,
>
> Thomas Harris
> Technical Account Manager - Federal Sales
> ITT Visual Information Solutions
>
> tharris@ittvis.com
> direct: 303.402.4666
> tel: 303.786.9900
> mobile: 720.256.1098
> fax: 303.786.9909
> www.ittvis.com