[nco-announce] netCDF operators NCO version 4.2.5 are ready

[Charlie Z. <ze...@uc...>]

The netCDF operators NCO version 4.2.5 are ready.

http://nco.sf.net (Homepage)
http://dust.ess.uci.edu/nco (Homepage "mirror")

This release fixes some annoying bugs introduced in 4.2.4:
The ncks switches --mk_rec_dmn and --fix_rec_dmn have been repaired.
Some sub-setting optimizations (MM3, for the wonkish) are also fixed.
Pretty simply, this is a more robust version of 4.2.4.

Work on NCO 4.2.6 is underway and focuses on better support for more
complex netCDF4 files, and on netCDF4 support for ncrename and ncbo
operators.

Enjoy,
Charlie

"New stuff" in 4.2.5 summary (full details always in ChangeLog):

NEW FEATURES:

A. ncks prints information on multiple root-level record dimensions

BUG FIXES:

A. Fix bug introduced in 4.2.4 that causes ncks to ignore --mk_rec_dmn
   and --fix_rec_dmn options. Thanks to ocehugo for reporting the bug.
   http://nco.sf.net#bug_ncks_mk_rec_dmn

A. Fix bug introduced in 4.2.4 where some sub-setting (-v var)
   operations failed. The were "MM3 copy operations" and  were fixed
   as a side-effect of the --mk_rec_dmn/--fix_rec_dmn fixes.

A. ncks prints more accurate netCDF4 metadata summaries in cases where
   variables use dimensions and coordinates defined in ancestor groups.
   Still more work to do on this though.

KNOWN BUGS NOT YET FIXED:

   This section of the ANNOUNCE file reports and reminds users of the
   existence and severity of known, not yet fixed, problems.
   These problems occur with NCO 4.2.5 built/tested with netCDF
   4.2.1 on top of HDF5 hdf5-1.8.9 with these methods:

   cd ~/nco;./configure --enable-netcdf4  # Configure mechanism -or-
   cd ~/nco/bld;make dir;make all;make ncap2 # Old Makefile mechanism

A. NOT YET FIXED
   Correctly read netCDF4 input over DAP, write netCDF4 output, then
read resulting file.
   Replacing netCDF4 with netCDF3 in either location of preceding
sentence leads to success.
   DAP non-transparency: Works locally, fails through DAP server.
   Unclear whether resulting file is "legal" because of dimension ID
ordering assumptions

   Demonstration:
   ncks -4 -O -v three_dmn_rec_var
http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/dodsC/testdods/in_4.nc ~/foo.nc
   ncks ~/foo.nc # breaks with "NetCDF: Invalid dimension ID or name"

   20120731: Unable to verify since in_4.nc no longer accessible
   Bug report filed: netCDF #QUN-641037: dimension ID ordering assumptions

B. NOT YET FIXED
   netCDF4 library fails when renaming dimension and variable using
   that dimension, in either order. Works fine with netCDF3.
   Problem with netCDF4 library implementation.

   Demonstration:
   ncks -O -4 -v lat_T42 ~/nco/data/in.nc ~/foo.nc
   ncrename -O -D 2 -d lat_T42,lat -v lat_T42,lat ~/foo.nc ~/foo2.nc #
Breaks with "NetCDF: HDF error"
   ncks -m ~/foo.nc

   20121025: Verified problem still exists
   Bug report filed: netCDF #YQN-334036: problem renaming dimension and
coordinate in netCDF4 file

C. NOT YET FIXED
   Unable to retrieve contents of variables including period '.' in name
   Metadata is returned successfully, data is not.
   DAP non-transparency: Works locally, fails through DAP server.

   Demonstration:
   ncks -O -C -D 3 -v var_nm.dot -p
http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/dodsC/testdods in.nc # Fails to
find variable

   20120731: Verified problem still exists.
   Stopped testing because inclusion of var_nm.dot broke all test scripts.
   NB: Problem hard to fix since DAP interprets '.' as structure
delimiter in query string of HTTP requests.

   Bug report filed: https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/jira/browse/NCF-47

D. NOT YET FIXED
   Correctly read scalar characters over.
   DAP non-transparency: Works locally, fails through DAP server.
   Problem, IMHO, is with DAP definition/protocol

   Demonstration:
   ncks -O -D 1 -H -C -m --md5 -v md5_a -p
http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/dodsC/testdods in.nc

   20120801: Verified problem still exists
   Bug report not filed
   Cause: DAP translates scalar characters into 64-element,
NUL-terminated strings so MD5 agreement fails

"Sticky" reminders:

A. Pre-built, up-to-date Debian Sid & Ubuntu packages:
   http://nco.sf.net#debian

B. Pre-built Fedora and CentOS RPMs:
   http://nco.sf.net#rpm

C. Pre-built Windows (native) and Cygwin binaries:
   http://nco.sf.net#windows

D. Pre-built AIX binaries:
   http://nco.sf.net#aix

-- 
Charlie Zender, Earth System Sci. & Computer Sci.
University of California, Irvine 949-891-2429 )'(