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Hi John, >Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 11:50:59 -0400 >From: address@hidden (John Sheldon) >Organization: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University >To: Steve Emmerson <address@hidden> >Subject: Re: 19990715: "Numeric conversion not representable" >Keywords: 199907152254.QAA09656 In the above message, you wrote: > Hi again Steve- > > Hope you all are hanging in there OK with Glenn gone. I know it's > gotta be hard.... It is. We all miss him. > I think you overestimate our awareness when you cite our "reliance" > on a (hitherto unknown) unspecified behavior :-) We just noticed that > it worked! :-) I'm not sure that non-documentation of how netCDF > handled conversions is something most users would pick up on.... You didn't rely on it, just your program. :-) Programs invariably contain dependencies of which the programmer is unaware. > > In version 3 of the netCDF interface, we tightened-up the specification > > by, among other things, specifying what will happen in certain > > value-conversion situations. > > This is a "Good Thing"! - don't be defensive. It just needs to > be communicated to users, that's all. We tried to communicate it in the "Type Conversion" section of "Appendix D - NetCDF 2 FORTRAN Transition Guide" of the "NetCDF User's Guide for FORTRAN". Sometimes with succeed; sometimes we fail. I think it's impossible to write a single document that will highlight important changes for all categories of users. > Now that we know about it, we can certainly address it. In the past, > we were quite happy to be "in awe" of netCDF's robustness in handling > these things (ie, ignorance was bliss :-). Tell me about it. (Sigh) :-) > > Even though we should know better, all programmers with any experience > > have written code that relys on unspecified behavior- (I've done it more > > times than I care to remember). If there's anything we can do to make > > the update easier, please let us know. > > No sweat. OK. Keep in touch. -------- Steve Emmerson <http://www.unidata.ucar.edu>