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NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
Current content can be found at unidata.ucar.edu.
To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
Jeff Whitaker <jswhit@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Jeff Whitaker wrote: >> >> Ed et al: Here's a simple C program that produces an incorrect >> netcdf file with netcdf-4.1 > > Can anyone confirm or deny that this is a real bug? I noticed that > netcdf-4.1 was pulled from the ftp site, so I guess that means someone > is working on it .... > > -Jeff Howdy Jeff! Yes, indeed, this is a real bug. I have taken down 4.1 as a result, and we are preparing a release with a fix. The bug itself manifests itself under the following circumstances: if you define dimensions, then you define a coordinate variable, and write to it, and then another coordinate variable, and if the coordinate variables are in a different order than the dimensions, on re-reading the file, netcdf-4.1 will be confused. A key part of activating the bug is that you write some of the coordinate variable data before defining all the coordinate variables. That is, if you call all the nc_def_var calls for the coordinate variables before writing any of their data, things will work fine. You must also be writing the dimensions and the coordinate variables in different orders to see this bug. If you defined the coordinate variables in the same order as you defined the dimensions, writing them before defining all of them would not be a problem. The way to check for this problem is to do an ncdump -h of the file and see if the dimension information in the ncdump is correct. In C it can be detected by closing the file, re-opening it, and checking the dimension ids of the variables. And as for your reference to "working on it," well, aren't we always? ;-) I will announce when we have a new release. The data files produced with 4.1 will be readable after I get the fix in place - the problem is in reading the file, it is written out just fine. Unfortunately this happens at a time when I have scheduled a short trip to see some family. However you can be sure this is my top programming priority. My apologies for any problems or inconvenience this may cause to any users. With extensive automated testing we hope to ensure that each release of netCDF is bug-free, but sometimes one slips through the net... Thanks, Ed -- Ed Hartnett -- ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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