Processing ascii data (Heeeeelp!!)

["R.Aspey" <raspey(at)liv.ac.uk>]

Firstly, thanks to those persons kind enough to repond to my previous post
the comments were very useful.

Basically I am reading a comma separated ascii file. It has 11 columns and
1800 rows. (for this example)

I have tried the function read ascii. An example of the code I tried to
get working is as follows:

data=fltarr[11, 1900]    ;; order of column/rows may be wrong here!

The matrix row/column order may be wrong (cant at the moment remember)
I then go on to read the data in

data=read_ascii('c:\robin.csv', DATA_START=2, delimiter=',');

Well anyway, when I try to display the contents of the array
which appeared to have been read in using

print, data

It appears that  routine has only read in the first column. I may be wrong
but how come MATLAB does this with rediculous ease and IDL is
some sort of programmers nightmare. Why dont these people get together
and make one product people could really use. It annoys me immensely.
The documentation for IDL really does not help very much at all.
Sad when all I want to do is plot a few graphs and I have to waste a
weekend on this. Someone really should tell them (RSI I mean)

Kind persons comments with suggestions for  a simple solution would be
very much welcome!!

R.Aspey raspey@liv.ac.uk

P.S. Why doesnt EXCEL produce EPS files. I suppose life would be too easy
then.