Temporary objects of any type and shape may be created by using the DAT_TEMP routine. This returns a locator to the newly created object and this may then be manipulated just as if it were an ordinary object (in fact a temporary container file is created with a unique name to hold all such objects, and this is deleted when the program terminates, or when HDS_STOP is called, if this happens earlier). This is often useful for providing workspace for algorithms which may have to deal with large arrays.