[Kst] Support for NetCDF4 files: yes or no?

[Peter Kümmel]

On 24.01.2013 21:20, Nicolas Brisset wrote:
> Hi Joseph,
>
> ----- Mail original -----
>> De: "Joseph W. Fowler" <joe.fowler at nist.gov>
>> À: kst at kde.org
>> Envoyé: Jeudi 24 Janvier 2013 02:40:47
>> Objet: [Kst] Support for NetCDF4 files: yes or no?
>>
>> Dear kst team:
>>
>> I'm considering new data file format options for a scientific data
>> set, and I am attracted to the "ragged arrays" supported by NetCDF
>> version 4.  It goes without saying that I'll want to use kst to
>> visualize the data in real time and after the fact.  I see from the
>> mailing list (July 2012) that Ross Williamson has privately made
>> mods to kst's netCDF plugin that would support version 4 files, but
>> I gather that this support isn't in the release version of kst2.
>>   (Not sure, though.  Perhaps I am just making NetCDF4 files that are
>> invalid in some way.)
> I'm not aware of useful patches that we'd have forgotten to apply. If
> it is indeed the case, we have to look at that.
> As far as I remember, he asked whether someone was working on it. I don't
> think it is the case, so any changes he could have made would be interesting
> to the wider community. I'm CC'ing him he case he has something he's willing
> to share.
> Regarding the support for version 4 files, if you build against a recent
> netCDF library it should be supported. @Peter: which library did you use for
> the Mac build mentioned below?

4.1.1
Here the Mac version loads (use "Tools->Data Wizard") examples files from
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/examples/files.html

>
> However note that according to the dimensions used for your variables they
> may not appear in the lists. The data wizard will only show you variables
> which can be handled as vectors (or you've found a bug, send a sample file
> so that we can check - or the output of netcdf -h).
>
>> The python script below makes simple NetCDF files in each of 4
>> flavors (provided that you have py-netCDF4 installed, of course).
>>   My kst2 correctly recognizes the two NetCDF3 files as NetCDF, but
>> it recognizes the two NetCDF4 files as ASCII (which is technically
>> true, but unhelpful).
>>
>> I am using the compiled Mac OSX disk image downloaded yesterday from
>> source forge, kst version 2.0.6 (Revision 1307223), on an OS 10.8
>> (Mountain Lion) Mac Pro.
>>
>> My questions are:
>>
>> 1. It seems like standard kst2 doesn't read NetCDF4 files.  Is that
>> true?
> See above, provided that you use a recent and properly built netcdf library
> all versions should be recognized.
>
>> 2. If not, is such a feature imminent, likely, or possible?
> Should be easy to do.
>
>> 3. Another thread on this mailing list seemed to state that NetCDF
>> files cannot be used in live (streaming) mode.  True?
>  From what there is in the source, I'd say growing files (live streaming)
> are supported. However I could never test it. I don't have  py-netCDF4
> installed, I can't try it right now but if you can do a script that adds
> data to an existing netcdf file I'd be interested to know whether it works.
>
>> If the answers are "true", "not imminent", and "true" then I guess I
>> should choose dirfiles/getdata instead.
> That's certainly also a format to consider.
>
> Nicolas
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