Thanks for the advice! (fwd)

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Robb Kambic                                Unidata Program Center
Software Engineer III                      Univ. Corp for Atmospheric Research
address@hidden             WWW: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:59:27 -0500
From: Brian Etherton <address@hidden>
To: Robb Kambic <address@hidden>
Subject: Thanks for the advice!

Hi there Robb,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robb Kambic" <address@hidden>
To: "Brian Etherton" <address@hidden>

> Brian,
>
> Actually I don't know of any s/w to create GRIB files from netCDF.  That
isn't to say that there's not any out there or it can't be done.

I haven't found any, so I figure I'll have to make my own.

> One can dump a netCDF file to stdout using a netCDF routine called ncdump.
One would have to install netCDF and udunits, not a major under taking.

netCDF I've done, will have to move onto the other.

> Since the netCDF output from ncdump is usually large, it would probably be
better to modify ncdump to write to a grib file. The hard part would be to
write the grib file.  The Unidata decoders package reads GRIB and writes
netCDF, so one would have to reverse the routine, probably not a easy task.

But likely what I'll have to do.

> gribtonc reads the GRIB file over a template and then it extracts the
info. The gribdump routine reads the GRIB and writes the output to stdout.
Probably the reverse of gribdump would be the better choice. One would have
to install the decoders package for these routines.  I looked on the web,
there are GRIB encoding packages available, never used any so I can't
comment. That's probably a better way to go instead of trying to read the
~10k lines code of gribdump.

Sounds like a good plan

> Some info about GRIB encoding, many more on the web :
> http://rsd-www.nrl.navy.mil/7214/data_fmt.html#grib
>
> You might want to look at the output of the eta model using gribdump, so
you are aware of the format and parameters.

Totally, get the grib 218 down solid.

> I would appreciate hearing about your findings. I've heard of the
netCDF-GRIB request a couple of times and never heard of the result.  Also
you might want to send your problem to address@hidden mail list.
You have to join to send the message.

I'll let you know if I can get it to work!

> The decoders page has all the needed info.
> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/decoders
> Good luck,
> Robb...

Thanks!  I'll see what I can do.

Ciao for now,
Brian E.