SDDS_table: Address of the SDDS_TABLE structure for the data set.
name: A NULL-terminated character string giving the name of the array. Must be
supplied.
symbol: A NULL-terminated character string giving the symbol to be used to represent
the array. If none is desired, pass NULL.
units: A NULL-terminated character string giving the units of the array. If none is
desired, pass NULL.
description: A NULL-terminated character string giving a description of the array. If
none is desired, pass NULL.
format_string: A NULL-terminated character string giving a printf format string to
be used to print the data for ASCII output. If NULL is passed, a reasonable default will
be chosen.
type: An integer value specifying the data type of the array. Must be one of the
following constants, defined in SDDS.h: SDDS_LONGDOUBLE, SDDS_DOUBLE,
SDDS_FLOAT, SDDS_LONG, SDDS_ULONG, SDDS_SHORT, SDDS_USHORT,
SDDS_CHARACTER, or SDDS_STRING.
field_length: An integer value giving the length of the field allotted to the array for
ASCII output. Ignored if zero. If negative, the field length is the absolute value, but
leading and trailing white-space are eliminated from data of type SDDS_STRING upon
readin.
dimensions: An integer value giving the number of dimensions of the array. Must be
greater than 0.
group_name: A NULL-terminated character string giving the name of the array group
to which the array belongs. This mechanism allows the user to indicate that different
arrays are related (e.g., parallel to one another).
return value: On success, returns the index of the newly-defined array. Returns -1 on failure and records an error
message.