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>From: Owen Cooper <address@hidden> >Organization: Aeronomy Laboratory/NOAA >Keywords: 200406080008.i5808gtK000586 McIDAS SCHEMA Flexpart Hi Owen, >Okay, I'm getting closer. >Just a couple of more questions. >1) Can I enter the date into my text file in the format yyyymmdd? This >format is more convenient that yyyyddd. I don't think so. The valid date formats for McIDAS in general can be seen from the output of ARGHELP: ARGHELP ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Valid McIDAS date argument format: [+-]yyyyddd , [+-]yyyy/mm/dd , [+-]mm/dd , [+-]dd/mon/yyyy , [+-]dd/mon , [+-]yyyy-mm-dd , [+-]mm-dd , [+-]dd-mon-yyyy , [+-]dd-mon where: yyyy = year (def=current year & century) mm = month (def=current month) mon = calendar month (>=3 chars) dd = day of month (required) ddd = day of year (required) '/' = today's date Acceptable Forms: [+-]yyyy/mm/dd , [+-]mm/dd , [+-]/mm/dd , [+-]yyyyddd , [+-]dd/mon/yyyy , [+-]dd/mon , [+-]dd/mon/ , [+-]ddd , [+-]/ , [+-]/dd , [+-]dd/ , [+-]//dd , [+-]dd// -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... > So far I haven't had any luck with yyyymmdd. I'm not sure what unit >to enter, I tried ymd but this is just a guess. I don't see yyyymmdd as a valid option, and I havn't tried other formats with TXT2MD. It may be that it doesn't like any non numeric values in a date. > When I list the contents of the MD file the date is reported as >************** Yup, it didn't work. > I tried entering the date as yyyy/mm/dd for example 2004/06/09 for >today. I used UNIT=ymd (again just a guess). I don't think that this is correct either. > The date value that I get using PTLIST is 4161.00 which appears to >some abreviated form of yyyyddd The value is being incorrectly interpreted. >2) What is the significance of the SCALE term when creating a SCHEMA? It says how many significant digits to save. All values in a McIDAS MD file (and GRID file) are saved as scaled integers. The scale factor is the power of 10 that the value gets multiplied by before it is truncated into an integer. So, it is the number of significant digits to keep for real values. >Right now I have CO set to SCALE=2 and the other keys are set to >SCALE=4, although I'm not sure why. LAT and LON are usually scaled by 10**4 so that the positioning is accurate enough. You have to base your SCALE value for the data based on the data's range. >thanks Sorry I couldn't be of more help in the date format area. I would have to do some testing to figure out exactly which date formats are supported by TXT2MD. I didn't have time to do this today... Cheers, Tom -- NOTE: All email exchanges with Unidata User Support are recorded in the Unidata inquiry tracking system and then made publically available through the web. If you do not want to have your interactions made available in this way, you must let us know in each email you send to us.