[no subject]

>From: address@hidden
>Organization: NOAA
>Keywords: 199912061901.MAA11025 McIDAS FSL profiler

Hongming,

>Sorry to bother you again. I appreciate all help you gave me.

No problem.

>Though I don't still get the netCDF from FSL, I have some questions
>about decode. You know, we try to get these data from FTP site of FSL. If
>these files are achieved by FTP, I still can use your decode program
>proftomd.

The decoder can read its input from either standard in (stdin) or
from a file using the -f command line option.  Both the binary and
source versions of the ldm-mcidas decoders are packaged with man pages
that explain how the various routines are used.  The first few lines
of the online man page for 'proftomd' looks like:

UNIDATA UTILITIES                                     PROFTOMD(1)



NAME
     proftomd - Unidata LDM decoder for FSL netCDF wind  profiler
     data

SYNOPSIS
     proftomd [-v]  [-x]  [-l logpath]  [-d directory]  [-f file]
          pcode schema MD_number

DESCRIPTION
     This program is an LDM decoder for McIDAS data of  type  MD:
     it reads a FSL netCDF data product from a pipe or a file and
     decodes that data into a McIDAS MD file.

 ...

The ldm-mcidas point source decoders are designed to be run from a
directory that contains the McIDAS schema repository file, SCHEMA.  The
-d command line flag refers to this directory.  Additionally, the
profiler schemas (WPRO, BPRO, and WPR6).  The binary distribution of
the ldm-mcidas package is bundled with a SCHEMA file that has these
schema registered in it.

>From your instruction, it seems like the program is used to
>decode the netCDF files by LDM.

It can be, yes.

>Thus the installment of package needs the
>McIDAS, netCDF and LDM.

You need these packages installed IF you want to build the ldm-mcidas
decoders from source.  If you can use a binary decoder (i.e. if your
operating system matches one for which we have a binary distribution),
you do not need any of these packages installed.

>I guess that decode program maybe covers some LDM
>information. Anyway, I only want to know if I can directly use the decode
>program to the file achieved by FTP, not LDM.

Yes.  Here is an example to get you going:

o I assume that you FTPed a binary distribution of ldm-mcidas from us
  and unpacked it in an account named 'user'.  The proftomd binary
  will then be located in ~user/ldm-mcidas-7.6.1/bin; the version of
  SCHEMA that is bundled with the binary distribution will be located
  in ~user/ldm-mcidas-7.6.1/etc.

o assume that you want to create your output MD file in the directory
  /data/profiler

o one way to get the job accomplished is:

  <login as 'user'>
  ln -s ldm-mcidas-7.6.1/etc/SCHEMA /data/profiler
  <put the FTPed profiler data fine in the /data/profiler directory>
  cd /data/profiler
  ~user/ldm-mcidas-7.6.1/bin/profiler -v -l- -d . -f fname U2 WPRO 70

  The pieces of the invocation are:

  ~user/ldm-mcidas-7.6.1/bin/profiler - the decoder
  -v                                  - verbose logging
  -l-                                 - log to stdout
  -f fname                            - fname is the FTPed profiler data file
  U2                                  - hourly summary profiler product code
                                        (really not important in your case
                                        but something must be specified as
                                        this is a positional parameter)
  WPRO                                - hourly summary profiler schema in SCHEMA
  70                                  - base MD file number

The actual output MD file number will be 70 + last digit of Julian day
(if last digit is 0, add 10 instead).

>Thanks,

Let me know if this doesn't answer your question.

Tom