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Howdy Dennis and All! I applaud the effort to improve user-specification of chunking. It is a topic that causes confusion to many users, in my experience. However I'm not sure I understand your algorithm. If I have dimids 0, 1, 2, which have dimlens NC_UNLIMITED, 30, and 50, and I indicate that I want c = 1 (0-based index, as God and K&R intended), then would I get chunksizes 1, 30, 50? Thanks, Ed Hartnett On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 4:31 PM, Dave Allured - NOAA Affiliate < dave.allured@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Okay, it sounds like you are NOT proposing any changes to the netcdf-4 > file format, or to the existing API functions. Good. > > You just asked for use cases DIFFERENT THAN 1,1,...1,di,dj,...dm. Here is > one. > > My local agency's data portal has gridded data sets that are normally > dimensioned (time, lat, lon) or (time, level, lat, lon). These are chunked > 1,d2,d3 or 1,1,d3,d4 for normal access, which is very popular. These use > cases could be served by your proposed alternate chunk spec method. > > However, some of our on-line applications serve long time series for > single grid points. The normal chunking schemes like 1,d2,d3 prove to be > unacceptably slow for grid point time series. "Compromise" chunking > schemes were tested, and they did not seem to perform well enough. > > So we created mirror data sets which are chunked optimally for reading > single grid points, e.g. (d1,1,1). These perform very well in live > operation, and we think that the double storage is worthwhile. > > This is almost the same use case as Heiko Klein's second one, "b) > timeseries strategy". > > --Dave A. > NOAA/OAR/ESRL/PSD/CIRES > Boulder, Colorado > > > On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 1:56 PM, dmh@xxxxxxxx <dmh@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> Note that I am proposing an second way to specify chunking on a variable. >> I am not proposing to remove any existing functionality. >> >> But let me restate my question. >> Question: what are some good use cases for having a chunking spec >> that is different than >> 1,1,...1,di,dj,...dm >> where di is the full size of the ith dimension of the variable. >> Heiko Klein has given a couple of good use cases, and I am looking for >> more. >> =Dennis >> >> >> On 5/16/2017 1:30 PM, Dave Allured - NOAA Affiliate wrote: >> >>> Dennis, >>> >>> Are you saying that the original function nc_def_var_chunking will be >>> kept intact, and there will be a new function that will simplify chunk >>> setting for some data scenarios? You are not proposing any changes in the >>> netcdf-4 file format? >>> >>> --Dave >>> >>> >>> On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 1:29 PM, dmh@xxxxxxxx <mailto:dmh@xxxxxxxx> < >>> dmh@xxxxxxxx <mailto:dmh@xxxxxxxx>> wrote: >>> >>> I am soliciting opinions about an alternate way to specify chunking >>> for netcdf files. If you are not familiar with chunking, then >>> you probably can ignore this message. >>> >>> Currently, one species a per-dimension decomposition that >>> together determine how a the data for a variable is decomposed >>> into chunks. So e.g. if I have variable (pardon the shorthand >>> notation) >>> x[d1=8,d2=12] >>> and I say d1 is chunked 4 and d2 is chunked 4, then x will be >>> decomposed >>> into 6 chunks (8/4 * 12/4). >>> >>> I am proposing this alternate. Suppose we have >>> x[d1,d2,...dm] >>> And we specify a position 1<=c<m >>> Then the idea is that we create chunks of size >>> d(c+1) * d(c+2) *...dm >>> There will be d1*d2*...dc such chunks. >>> In other words, we split the set of dimensions at some point (c) >>> and create the chunks based on that split. >>> >>> The claim is that for many situations, the leftmost dimensions >>> are what we want to iterate over: e.g. time; and we then want >>> to read all of the rest of the data associated with that time. >>> >>> So, my question is: is such a style of chunking useful? >>> >>> If this is not clear, let me know and I will try to clarify. >>> =Dennis Heimbigner >>> Unidata >>> >> > _______________________________________________ > NOTE: All exchanges posted to Unidata maintained email lists are > recorded in the Unidata inquiry tracking system and made publicly > available through the web. Users who post to any of the lists we > maintain are reminded to remove any personal information that they > do not want to be made public. > > > netcdfgroup mailing list > netcdfgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > For list information or to unsubscribe, visit: > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/ >
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