20040727: text to netcdf

>From:  Rick Kohrs <address@hidden>
>Organization:  SSEC
>Keywords:  200407271510.i6RFAraW021892 netCDF convert

Hi Rick,

>Do you know of any conversion program that takes text data and converts 
>it to netcdf?

I talked with a few others here at Unidata, and nobody knows of a
general purpose conversion utility that would do this for you.

Creating a program to do the conversion should be very easy, however.
The netCDF application 'ncgen' can be used to generate a program
skeleton in C or Fortran based on a CDL file that you create
(a CDL is somewhat akin to a database schema).  The process would be:

- examine the data you have to see how it would be best stored in
  a netCDF

- create a CDL to describe the output netCDF

- use 'ncgen' to create the program skeleton based on the CDL

- edit the skeleton and flesh out the data reads/writes

- compile and link the fleshed out program

>I am toying with the idea of creating a netcdf file from 
>the GNIS database that is used to create the towns database.
>
>I'd like to use the population as a select clause and utitilze the 
>decluttering capabilities of PTDISP to plot city names.  This all stems 
>from Travis Martin's request to plot city names and highway information 
>for radar products they are developing.

The creation of a program to do what you want should be relatively
easy.  Let me know if you run into any conceptual snags.

Cheers,

Tom
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
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