20010418: Profiler plotting failures (cont.)

>From: "Paul L. Sirvatka" <address@hidden>
>Organization: College of DuPage
>Keywords: 200104102320.f3ANKPL28016 McIDAS-X PROFSECT

Paul,

>I have profiler data working now (at least as far as I can tell.) However,
>I run a script at 11 minutes after the hour. Shouldn't it show me the
>00min data? As it turns out I am only seeing data from 54 minutes ofter
>the hour. Or is it delayed more than that?

Setting the default time for products is a tricky business.  I set the
number of minutes to back in time to get to "current" to 12 for 6-minute
profiler data for the following reasons:

o 6-minute data is collected by FSL over a time interval; it is then
  run through a QC process; and then it is "broadcast" via the IDD
o how fast a relay can send along any particular product in the IDD
  depends on network contestion from the relay of that product; the
  network congestion from that site's relay; etc.

I figured that 12 minutes was as close as I could cut the tolerance
and still have a chance of being correct at most sites where the
network bandwidth is average.  So, running your script at 11 past
the hour makes the effect time one minute before the hour.  When you
classify this to a 6-minute bin, it goes to 6 before the hour.  If
you were to run your script at 12 (or 13, 14, ...) past the hour,
the time looked for would be the top of the hour.

>Also...is there a way to fail if the data is not there rather than
>displaying a blank map?

PROFSECT sets an error return that can be checked in your script(s).
For efficiencey, the background is always plotted.  If no data is
available from the server, PROFSECT will exit with an error status
which you can then check and use to decide if you want to create a
GIF (tm)/JPEG/etc. image.  Check out the McIDAS User's Guide sections
on BATCH and McBASI for more information on checking the status
returns of programs.  It is pretty simple to do, and both BATCH
and McBASI (and Unix shell scripts, of course) offer ways of doing
logical flow control so you can jump around the FRMSAVE step.

Tom