Re: bugs in ncdump/ncgen on DEC/ALPHA

> Organization: NOAA/PMEL
> Keywords: 199404071738.AA07045

Hi Steve,

> Thought I should report these "bugs" to you - they have hit us on several
> occasions.
> 
> I have placed a file in anonymous ftp for you that demonstrates both
> problems.
> 
>       node:  abyss.pmel.noaa.gov
>       dir:   special_requests/unidata
>       file:  bad_cdf.cdf
> 
> The bugs can be seen as follows (DEC/ALPHA system):
> 
>       > ncdump bad_cdf.cdf | ncgen -o test.cdf
>       ncgen: - line 34: bad float constant: .f
>       ncgen: - line 34: syntax error
> 
> You will find that the errors are due to 2 factors:
> 
> 1) ncdump generates the string "1e+34" that ncgen is unhappy with
> 2) ncdump generates the string "-0" - don't know why ... or what the true
> value is.

Thanks for reporting these.  I'll put them on my list to fix.  By the way,
the second bug doesn't seem to be Alpha-specific.  I just tried your
"ncdump|ncgen" pipeline on the file on a Sparc10/Solaris 5.3 and got a
syntax error reported by ncgen from the occurrence of "-0".  I'll work on a
fix for that one first.

--Russ