19990315: ASUS front files

>From: "Dan A. Dansereau" <address@hidden>
>Organization: USU
>Keywords: 199903152128.OAA18029 McIDAS-X FRONT FRNTDISP

Dan,

>1) what is the name and where do the front files go to
>use the MCGUI front display?

The front files that are used need to be created by the LDM and named
appropriately.  The code from LDM's pqact.conf file that does the saving
is (be sure to be carefull about tabs versus spaces):

# fronts in ASUS1ddd
DDS     ^ASUS01 .... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9])
        FILE    data/surface/front/ASUS1%j

# forecast fronts in FSUS2ddd
DDS     ^FSUS02 .... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9])
        FILE    data/surface/front/FSUS2%j

The directory you decide to write the files to is not important except that
McIDAS routines need to be able to find it.  You do this in McIDAS by
adding a file REDIRECTion.  Let's assume for argument that you decide to
put the front files in /var/data/ldm/surface/front.  The REDIRECTions you
would need in each McIDAS user's session would be creatable by running:

REDIRECT ADD ASUS1* "/var/data/ldm/surface/front
REDIRECT ADD FSUS2* "/var/data/ldm/surface/front

continuing to follow the example above, data/surface/front would have
to be the same directory as /var/data/ldm/surface/front.

>on the DEC/ALPHA osf1 version, I get an error
>error, read on unit 5, attempting to do an unfomatted
>read on a internal data set, (then JIBERISH)
>
>then a core dump, and it kicks me out of mcidas.

Have you grabbed the latest version of front.pgm and frntdisp.pgm?
They are located in the mcupdate.tar.Z file in the unix/740/bugfix
directory on our FTP server, ftp.unidata.ucar.edu, in the passworded
McIDAS FTP account.

>   on the SUN's no fronts,
>
>I would just like to use as close
>the default and/or recomended locations
>as possible.

The locations don't matter at all as long as the user's McIDAS session
can find the data.  In the case of ADDE, if one is going through a remote
ADDE server, then the only account that needs to be able to find the data
files is 'mcadde'.  If one follows my recommendation on setting up the
remote ADDE server, then 'mcadde' shares the 'mcidas' home directory
structure, so 'mcidas' is the only user that needs to be able to find
the data files.

>2) does Mcidas handle  ALL the byte order differences/
>problems associated with SUN/DEC/INTELL?
>
>or do I need to decode on the same platform
>that I run Mcidas on??

It should handle all of the byte ordering nonsense.  As far as decoding
goes access to , MDXX, GRID, and AREA files has been byte order independent
for a number of years.  The mods that we had to make to core McIDAS was
for the TEXT type data that is accessed through routines like WXTLIST.

>Thanks for your help?

No problem.

Tom Yoksas