netCDF operators NCO version 2.9.6 are ready

• To: NCO Annnounce <nco-announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
• Subject: netCDF operators NCO version 2.9.6 are ready
• From: Charlie Zender <zender@xxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:03:26 -0700

Hi All,

The netCDF operators NCO version 2.9.6 are ready. 

http://nco.sf.net (Homepage)
http://dust.ess.uci.edu/nco (Homepage "mirror")

This release implements a new way to specify output files to NCO.
Output files may now be specified with -o (or --fl_out or --output),
or as last positional argument (the traditional behavior). 
This facilitate processing of large numbers of files by multi-file
operators (ncra, ncrcat, ncecat) by using the xargs command, e.g.,

/bin/ls | grep day_after_tomorrow_????.nc | xargs ncra -o dat.nc

Using xargs or perl to handle these situations is now documented in

http://nco.sf.net/nco.html#lrg

The new -o fl_out behavior works on all operators.
ncwa was the only operator that previously used -o for anything.
It use the -o switch for passing relational operator types for masking.
The new ncwa single-letter option for this is -t for "truth condition".
The preferred ncwa switches are now --truth_condition or --msk_cmp_typ
for "mask comparison type". 
The old ncwa long options synonyms --cmp, --compare, and --op_cmp were
removed to reduce the burgeoning number of synonyms.
The other ncwa -o long-option synonym, --op_rlt, works as usual.
Please modify ncwa scripts accordingly.
Unmodified ncwa scripts which expect the old behavior of -o will fail
with a harmless error stating that too many input filenames are present.

Enjoy,
Charlie

Feature changes:
1. All operators accept output filename specified with -o (or --fl_out
or --output) instead of as last positional argument.

Bug-fixes:
1. None

Build changes:
1. Implement -m64 option for ABI=64 with LINUXAMD64
2. Debian packages now install libnco_c++ by default, and libnco_c++
   version numbers now track libnco

Other user-visible changes:
1. Old ncwa -o switch now implemented with -t switch
2. Change warning size for large filenames from 80 to 255 characters

User-invisible changes:
1. Added doc/nco_ltr_spp.txt which contains NCO/SDO endorsements

-- 
Charlie Zender, surname@xxxxxxx, (949) 824-2987, Department of Earth 
System Science, University of California, Irvine CA 92697-3100