Re: Netcdf and MS-Windows

>Organization: Orkustofnun (National Energy Authority), Reykjavik, Iceland

Hi Tomas,

> I sent you a question regarding netCDF and MS-Windows
> in January and you replied that you did not know of
> anyone who had compiled netCDF as a DLL or used it on
> the MS-Windows platform.

Now I know of an instrumentation vendor, Varian Chromatography Systems, who
has compiled netCDF as a DLL for MS-Windows.  The person who told me about
this was

     Jean-Louis Excoffier <address@hidden>

I think Varian is planning to release the netCDF access libraries as part of
an "AIA Toolkit for Windows" product sometime soon.  AIA is the Analytical
Instrument Association, who have adopted netCDF for one or more of their
standards.  I had requested a copy of the source changes from Varian, but
they haven't made them available to us yet.

> I am will start to program an application in Borland-C++
> shortly which will make use of netCDF under MS-Windows.
> If your or someone else at Unidata have since January
> heard something from someone using netCDF under MS-Windows
> or if you have since then looked into porting netCDF
> to MS-Windows please let me know.

I haven't heard from anyone else who has ported netCDF to MS-Windows,
although I'd heard some other instrument vendors were working on it.

> I have heard that the commercial program SpyGlass
> allows you to access netCDF files for plotting and
> analysis. Since SpyGlass is an MS-Windows program
> they must have solved whatever problems which need
> to be solved to access netCDF files from MS-Windows.
> If you have any familiarity with what SpyGlass has
> done in this matter I would be grateful to know about that.

I have a copy of SpyGlass for Macintosh, but hadn't heard that SpyGlass had
also been ported to MS-Windows.

> Have you for example a contact person at SpyGlass that
> participated in the programming of the SpyGlass netCDF
> interface?

No, I haven't heard anything recently from person I knew who developed
netCDF access for SpyGlass for the Macintosh (Dave Lucas, Northwest Research
Associates, Inc., <address@hidden> is the last address I have).

We still aren't working on or supporting MS-Windows at Unidata, but if you
hear of someone else who has done the work and is willing to share it, we'd
be interested.  Since we hope to release netCDF 2.4 this summer, it might be
better to start from that for a port to MS-Windows.

> Some time ago I saw that the C++ netCDF wrapper is being reexamined.
> When will a new official version replace the current experimental
> interface? Is there a list of the changes/improvements which
> will be implemented in this new version which you could send to me?

C++ additions include adding C++ methods for ncvargetg, ncvarputg, 
ncrecget, ncrecput, and ncrecinq.  This is the only change scheduled to be
in release 2.4, but I haven't begun work on it yet.

Other improvements I'd like to make to the C++ interface, which might get
into release 2.4 if they are done in time, include:

 - Add an NcSchema class, to make schema changes more explicit rather than
   trying to hide them as in the current interface
 - Use templates
 - Add support for exceptions, so library clients can do better error
   handling 
 - Investigate the use of STL iterators, containers for netCDF classes 

There is a draft document with some netCDF plans at 

   <URL:http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/plans.html>

I haven't announced its existence yet because I'm trying to finish up
another project first.

--Russ

______________________________________________________________________________

Russ Rew                                           UCAR Unidata Program
address@hidden                              http://www.unidata.ucar.edu