Re: [OctDev] new package ncArray 1.0.0

[Michael G. <mic...@gm...>]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 9:46 PM, Alexander Barth
<bar...@gm...>wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Michael Goffioul
> <mic...@gm...> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 12:44 PM, Alexander Barth
> > <bar...@gm...> wrote:
> >>
> >> Sorry for poor spelling in my last email. The email was sent
> >> inadvertently before I could check it.
> >> Source packages are here:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/mediawiki/upload/Alex/ncArray/ncarray-1.0.0.tar.gz
> >>
> >>
> http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/mediawiki/upload/Alex/ncArray/ncarray-html.tar.gz
> >>
> >> Can somebody update the server?
> >> Best regards,
> >> Alex
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Alexander Barth
> >> <bar...@gm...> wrote:
> >> > Dear all,
> >> >
> >> > I have released a new package called ncArray for manipulating netcdf
> >> > files. It depends on the functions ncread, ncwrite and ncinfo from
> >> > octcdf. Maybe someday, these functions will be implemented in octave
> >> > (as they are in matlab) and ncArray will be independent from octcdf.
> >> >
> >> > The package allows to access a single or a collection of NetCDF files
> >> > (or OPeNDAP URLs) as a multi-dimensional array.
> >> > For a collection of NetCDF files, the variables are concatenated along
> >> > a given dimension similar to the command cat. The ncArray object
> >> > contains only a reference to the underlying files. The data is loaded
> >> > only, if the array is indexed.
> >> >
> >> > For example, if the current directory containts file1.nc, file2.ncand
> >> > file3.nc and each file contains the 20 x 30 variable temp, then:
> >> >
> >> > A = ncCatArray(3,'file*.nc','temp')
> >> >
> >> > would create and array A of size 20 x 30 x 3 without actually loading
> >> > the files. Only when the array is index e.g., A(:,:,2:3), the file
> >> > file2.nc and file3.nc are loaded.
> >> >
> >> > Also, reduction operators are implement. For example, sum(A,3) would
> >> > compute the sum over the 3rd dimension and sequentially loading all
> >> > files.
> >> >
> >> > ncArray allows thus to write code for dataset which are too big to be
> >> > loaded in memory and still to write code that are independent on the
> >> > way the data is stored and how a data set is split across files.
> >> >
> >> > More example how to use this package are available here:
> >> > http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/mediawiki/index.php/NcArray
> >> >
> >> > Best rega
> >>
> >
> >  Is there a reason not to integrate these functions into the octcdf
> package
> > directly?
> >
> > Michael.
> >
>
> Yes, ncArray contains pure m-scripts that work also with matlab.
> octcdf is mostly written in C++ code that are specific to octave. A
> matlab user thus only needs the package ncArray.
>

OK, thanks. I was just asking, because from a packager point of view, the
proliferation of single niche-specific packages is a pain and increases the
workload. For instance, I would also see ncArray to fit into the io package.


>
> Best regards,
> Alex
>