;+
; NAME: montecarlo_median
; PURPOSE:
; 	given a set of numbers, uses monte-carlo methods to determine
; 	both the median and the standard deviation of the median.
;
; INPUTS:
; 	data	a set of data
; KEYWORDS:
; 	ntrials number of monte carlo trials [default = 100]
; OUTPUTS:
; 	median		median of the data
; 	medstddev	stddev of the median
;
; HISTORY:
; 	Began 2002-08-16 15:17:37 by Marshall Perrin 
;-

PRO montecarlo_median,data,median,medstddev,ntrials=ntrials,silent=silent
	if not(keyword_set(ntrials)) then ntrials = 100

	median = median(data)
	meds = fltarr(ntrials)

	if not(keyword_set(silent)) then message,/info,"Calculating median & stddev"
	for n=0,ntrials-1 do begin
		indices = floor(randomu(seed,n_elements(data))*n_elements(data))
		meds[n] = median(data[indices])
	endfor 

  	if not(keyword_set(silent))then print,median, stddev(meds)
	medstddev = stddev(meds)
end