;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; NAME: REMOVE
;
; PURPOSE: To remove all characters from the given string as specified by
;          the parameter array
;
; CALLING SEQUENCE: Result = REMOVE (text, param)
;
; INPUTS:
;    Text: String of characters to be cleaned
;    Param: A string array of characters to be removed from text
; OUTPUTS:
;    Result: String characters removed of all unwanted characters
;
; OPTIONAL INPUTS: none
;
; EXAMPLE:
;    To remove all unwanted characters as defined by param:
;       IDL> param = ['"',',',')','(']
;       IDL> result = REMOVE ("this, here (contained)",param)
;       IDL> print, result
;            this here contained
;
; PROCEDURES USED: none
;
; MODIFICATION HISTORY:
; Written by Puneet Khetarpal, January 15, 2003
;
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------


function REMOVE, text, param
   length = strlen(text)
   clength = length - 1
   plength = n_elements(param)-1

   if length NE 0 then begin
      btext = byte(text)
      nbtext = bytarr(length)
      bparam = byte(param)
      count = fix(0)

      for c = 0, clength do begin
         flag = 1
         p = 0
         for p = 0, plength do begin
            if btext[c] EQ bparam[p] then flag = -1
         endfor
         if flag NE -1 then begin
            nbtext[count] = btext[c]
            count = count + 1
         endif
      endfor
      if count NE 0 then text = string(nbtext[0:count-1])
   endif
   return, text
end