netCDF-4.0 alpha11 now on FTP site...

• To: netcdf-hdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: netCDF-4.0 alpha11 now on FTP site...
• From: Ed Hartnett <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 13:26:50 -0700

Howdy all!

Like Santa's busy elves, hundreds of programmers labor away on the
107th floor of UCAR Tower #3, night and day, to prepare netCDF-4
releases for all the good little scientists. (But our
programmers are taller than elves!)

For your holiday data fun, I have just put an alpha11 release of
netCDF-4 on the Unidata FTP site.

Firstly: a warning:

NETCDF-4.0 IS STILL NOT READY FOR ARCHIVAL STORAGE. IT WILL NOT BE
UNTIL AFTER HDF5 RELEASE 1.8.0. DO NOT USE NETCDF-4.0 FOR STORAGE OF
DATA. INSTEAD USE NETCDF-3.6.0. THIS ALPHA RELEASE IS ONLY FOR THOSE
WHO WANT AN ADVANCE PEEK AT THE NEW FEATURES OF NETCDF-4.0.

You have been warned!

For anyone still reading, this alpha release has been tested with
HDF5-1.7.51, which needs to be built with zlib. (That is, you must
build zlib first, then build HDF5 with the --with-zlib=/some/location
and then build netCDF-4 with that HDF5 build.)

Future release will detect the absence of zlib, if HDF5 is built
without it, and react more gracefully. For now, you must have zlib.

The netCDF API has had some minor changes since the last alpha
release, and some more minor changes are still to come before the beta
release. In the alpha11 release the names of all functions that used
to end in _int64, now end in _longlong. Similarly, those that ended in
_uint64 now end in _ulonglong. (For example, nc_put_vara_int64 is now
nc_put_vara_longlong).

This release also includes working F77, C++ and F95 APIs, but they
don't fully support the new Common Data Model - however you can use
them to create netCDF-4 files, as long as you stick to the classic
data model. (That is, don't try to use groups, compound types, or any
of the new features of netCDF-4, but just create HDF5 files with
existing netCDF fortran code.)

Although the underlying C API is well-tested by the automatic tests
(you did run "make check", didn't you?) the language APIs are not
well-tested at this time for netCDF-4 files.

In terms of building, this release seems reasonably robust, but if you
don't need the C++ interface, specify --disable-cxx to
configure. Similarly for --disable-f77 and --disable-f90. By disabling
any language APIs that you don't need, you greatly reduce the chance
of build problems.

Finally, you need to specify --enable-netcdf-4 and
--with-hdf5=/some/location.

For example, here's how to build netCDF-4, just the core C library:

./configure --enable-netcdf-4 --with-hdf5=/usr/local --disable-cxx 
--disable-f77 && make check

Please let me know if you try this alpha release, and if configure and
make check don't work for you.

Thanks!

Ed Hartnett

-- 
Ed Hartnett  -- ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx