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Re: 950822: netCDF on Alpha

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  • Subject: Re: 950822: netCDF on Alpha
  • Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 16:49:42 -0600
>Organization: NOAA/PMEL
>Keywords: 199508222110.AA11788

Hi Dave,

> I have been  trying to use netCDF on a Dec alpha-axp system.  I
> can get things compiled and linked, but the byte order for 32 bit
> reals is swapped when moving between other machines(Dec vms, Solaris)
> and the axp.  I Dec vms file I have is read with the float bytes 
> transposed
> "cdab" instead of "abcd".

If you are using the latest released version (2.3.2pl2), available from

    ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/netcdf-232pl2.tar.Z

the byte order is supposed to be handled correctly by the "configure"
script, which contains an explicit test for endianness, and sets a SWAP
macro to be used in building the netCDF libraries.  This seems to work OK on
our Alpha.  Are you using the "configure" script to create the appropriate
Makefiles before you try to build the package, as described in the
netcdf/INSTALL document?

> Do you have a working set of source code and/or object code specifically 
> for alpha-axp systems?

Yes, the released source works, except for the C++ interface.  I'm currently
working on getting the C++ interface working on all platforms, including the
Alpha, for the 2.4 release, which we hope to have ready for testing in the
next month or so.  You will have to recompile executables built on the Alpha
when release 2.4 is available, since one of the library typedefs changes to
improve performance with longs on the Alpha.

If you can't get the released version to work on the Alpha, please send us
the output of running the "configure" script as well as a copy of the
resulting "config.status" script, so we can try to diagnos the problem
further.

______________________________________________________________________________

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