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19990426: ldm & mcidas at stc

>From: address@hidden
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 199904091934.NAA23884 ldm-mcidas

Alan,

>We stalled here last week, with interviews for a new faculty person.

I was wondering why I didn't hear from you last Friday.

>My assistant did discover the joys of pattern action statements in
>pqact, but I think I want to raise some more general questions before
>we go any further.

The joys of regular expressions.  I'll have to remember that ;-)

>Your last message (16 Apr.) reminded me to be careful of getting our 
>pqact template from the web site, and to use the one with the ldm 
>distribution.

Actually, I wanted you to use the one with the ldm-mcidas distribution.

>I looked in  our ldm's home dir, then in /etc and found 
>pqact.dist.  This is a very short file, with web address lines for 
>finding sample pqact entries for GEMPACK, LDM-MCIDAS and McIDAS-XCD.
>This did not seem to match what you had described.

Right.

>I went to the address for LDM-Mcidas and transferred the file
>ldm-mcidas-pqact.conf as per directions.

Excellent.  The reason I wanted you to do this was that pqact.conf is
very picky about where you have to use tabs and where you can use other
white space.  Cutting and pasting from a web page usually does not
preserve tabs.

>I assume this is the file we can modify to our site, but I expected to 
>find something similar in pqact.dist.  Can you comment?

The entries in ldm-mcidas-pqact.conf contains entries for ldm-mcidas
decoders only.  Typically, you would merge the entries in it with
a more complete pqact.conf file.

>Also, I am 
>concerned about your comment regarding tabs being lost if we use 
>ldm-mcidas-pqact.conf as listed on the web site.

What I meant was if you used cut and paste from a web browser.  If
you use the actual file, then you shouldn't have any problems.

>However, the instructions
>to transfer a copy of this file imply that it can be used as the 
>starting point.

Right.

>So, we have the html file which discusses the example pqact.conf entries,
>(LDM-McIDAS Example pqact.conf file) and the file ldm-mcidas-pqact.conf.
>I just want to confirm we are starting from the right place.

Starting with the entries in ldm-mcidas-pqact.conf is correct.

>The 
>lack of something more extensive in our ldm after it was set up 
>seemed puzzling, (pqact.dist) unless I am looking in the wrong place.

No, the pqact.conf file that comes with the LDM is pretty sparse.  I
thought, however, that a more extensive one was available.  If not,
we can provide you with one.

>Does this mean we missed something or had an error when ldm was set up?

No, not at all.

>I suspect the answers are pretty simple, but wanted to check.

Your surmise was correct, the answers are pretty simple and
straightforward.  The only reason we do not distribute a "full"
pqact.conf file is that the file is infinitely configurable.  Our setup
here at the UPC might match what you want to do, or it might not.
Since we need to ingest and decode everything (including multiple test
data sets that Unidata sites do not (yet) have access to), our
pqact.conf file might do more to confuse fledgling sites than help
them.  I have seen that a number of new sites have requested access to
other's sites pqact.conf files as a starting point.  The problem here
is in explaining exactly what you want to get/decode.

To get going, you should start with the ldm-mcidas-pqact.conf file
(either copying its contents into ~ldm/etc/pqact.conf or renaming
it and moving it to ~ldm/etc).  Once you have the ldm-mcidas stuff
working to your satisfaction, you can expand your ingest/decode
options.

Talk to you soon...

Tom