20040526: Naming convention for Nalarm

>From: "Daniel Leins" <address@hidden>
>Organization: NOAA
>Keywords: 200405270355.i4R3tmtK022832 LDM pqact.conf

Dan,

>I was curious if there is a way to name incoming products by the time 
>that they arrive on the computer.

Yes.

>For example, I frequently use Nalarm, 
>and instead of the default file name that appears in the window, I would 
>like to customize it to contain the exact time that it arrived on my 
>machine, i.e. 200405260412, for 5/26/04 0412Z, or at least something 
>along those lines which will include the time.  I've messed around a 
>little in the pqact file, but haven't done anything besides bury the 
>incoming product in a series of directories which seemingly have no end.
>
>I was also curious, I see the FILE option listed quite frequently in the 
>pqact file.  Is there any way you can set a program to be executed upon 
>arrival of a specific file?

Yes, for that you use the PIPE action.  PIPE will send the product
to standard out.  The program you want to run will need to be able
to read the product from standard in.

>Can this be placed underneath the FILE line, i.e.

No.  You would replace the FILE action with a PIPE action.

>WMO    ^...... K*** ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9]).*/pZFP
>    FILE    data/gempak/alarms/dan/(\1:hh)(\1:mm)\3\4\5_\6.\1_\2
>    /usr/local/program/program.pl

Two things are wrong with this pqact.conf entry:

1) replace K*** with K...

2) change FILE to PIPE

Here is an action that is more nearly correct:

WMO     ^...... K... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9]).*/pZFP
        PIPE -close /usr/local/program/program.pl

Full information on what can and can not be in pqact.conf entries
can be found in the online 2003 LDM Training Workshop materials:

Unidata HomePage
http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/

  LDM
  http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/ldm/index.html

  LDM 6.0.14
  http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/ldm/ldm-6.0.14/index.html

  LDM Tutorial
  http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/ldm/ldm-6.0.14/tutorial/index.html

The Unidata GEMPAK distribution has a nice script that creates pqact.conf
actions for decoding data received in the IDD into GEMPAK-compatible
files/formats.  Looking at the variety of actions created by that script
will show practical examples of what can be done with pqact.conf entries.

One final comment.  Whenever you modify pqact.conf entries, you should
always run 'ldmadmin pqqctcheck' to see if you made any obvious
errors (it catches most, but not all errors):

ldmadmin pqactcheck

If this shows no errors, you can tell 'pqact' to reread the configuration
file and make new actions active:

ldmadmin pqactHUP

>Thanks,

No worries.

By the way, what is the name of the machine you are running the LDM on,
and is it reporting real time stats?

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.