Re: Significant milestone for netCDF-4/HDF5

• To: russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, netcdf-hdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: Significant milestone for netCDF-4/HDF5
• From: Mike Folk <mfolk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 07:01:46 -0600

Outstanding!  You guys are good!

Mike

At 07:52 PM 11/30/2003, Russ Rew wrote:

Hi,

Ed just reported that he got his netCDF-3 C interface that uses the
HDF5 API and storage layer to pass the current netCDF comprehensive
test suite.  This uses an unmodified HDF5 1.6.1 library and a
basically unmodified nc_test from the latest netCDF 3.5 release.

Ed's implementation demonstrates that the current HDF5 even without
enhancements is adequate for a correct implementation of netCDF-3 and
that the backward-compatibility approach is sound, since the new
library can use the old interface and can access data from either
current netCDF-3 or new HDF5 files transparently by just recompiling
and relinking old netCDF-3 programs.  We weren't sure this level of
both API and format compatibility could be achieved, but now we know
it's practical.

I think this puts us ahead of schedule, providing a baseline
implementation we can later compare with a tuned version that uses an
enhanced HDF5 library.

Now that the netcdf-3 tests pass, we can start to investigate and
write tests for some of the new functionality that this gives us with
very little additional work, such as large files and new data types.

We can also begin planning improvements to both the current prototype
and the HDF5 implementation to serve as a basis for the netCDF-4
enhancements we have in mind.  We could also look at performance,
taking care to avoid premature optimizations until we understand how
to make the changes needed to support the netCDF-4 enhancements.

Thanks to Ed, Quincey, and others who have been involved in helping to
achieve this significant milestone!

--Russ

--
Mike Folk, Scientific Data Tech (HDF)   http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu
NCSA/U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign          217-244-0647 voice

From owner-netcdf-hdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 01 2003 Dec -0700 07:40:56

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Date: 01 Dec 2003 07:40:56 -0700
From: Ed Hartnett <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
In-Reply-To: <200312010152.hB11qPEH012972@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Significant milestone for netCDF-4/HDF5
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Russ Rew <russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Hi,

Ed just reported that he got his netCDF-3 C interface that uses the
HDF5 API and storage layer to pass the current netCDF comprehensive
test suite.  This uses an unmodified HDF5 1.6.1 library and a
basically unmodified nc_test from the latest netCDF 3.5 release.

Just a minor clarification: the test suite was completely
unmodified. I didn't change a single test, though we did discuss that
possibility at one point.

I did change the nc_test Makefile to link to my version of the netcdf
library. This was only necessary because I want to leave the old
netcdf-3.5 distribution alone on my computer. A "real" netcdf-4 user
will be able to switch apps to netcdf-4 without even modifying the
Makefile.


Ed

• References:
  • Significant milestone for netCDF-4/HDF5
    • From: Russ Rew