[netCDF #CRT-339469]: vc++

We recently (Summer of 2010) refactored the core building of the netCDF 
library. Unfortunately this hopelessly broke the existing port to Microsoft 
Visual Studio. Resources permitting, the development of a new Visual Studio 
port will be undertaken in the second half of 2010 at Unidata. Unitl then, no 
Visual Studio port of the latest version of the library is available.

Users are advised that the netCDF build is known to work with Cygwin, the free 
POSIX layer for Windows. Building netCDF with Cygwin, and including the netCDF, 
HDF5, zlib, and Cygwin DLLs, will allow you to access the netCDF C library on 
Windows, even from Visual Studio builds.

We understand that Windows users are most comfortable with a Visual Studio 
build, and we intend to provide one.

The Visual Studio port is complicated by the following factors:

    * No configure script support on windows - the Unix build system uses a 
configure script to determine details of the build platform and allow the user 
to specify settings. Windows has no mechanism for this other than statically 
set properties. A Wndows-only config.h file needs to be created for windows 
using Cygwin, then included with the distribution. Since this contains the 
version string, it must be updated "by hand" before each release.
    * No m4 on windows - the Unix build uses the macro language m4 to generate 
some of the C code in the netCDF library (for example, libsrc/putget.c). M4 
must be run under Cygwin to generate these files, and then they must be 
statically added to the windows distribution. Each new version of netCDF these 
files should be checked for changes. We are restricting new use of m4 for 
netCDF compiles, but that doesn't help with the existing files.
    * No user options on Windows - since Windows does not support a configure 
step, all user options must be pre-set in the Visual Studio property lists. As 
a simplification, many options available to Unix users will be unavailable to 
builders on Windows, such as --disable-dap, --disable-netcdf-4, and 
--disable-shared.
    * Large files (> 2 GB) have proved to be a problem area in past Windows 
builds.
    * Previous Windows ports have not had to deal with the new opendap client. 

Unidata is a community supported organization, and we welcome collaboration 
with users who would like to assist with the windows port. Users should be sure 
to start with the netCDF daily snapshot, not a previous release of netCDF.

NOTE: User Viet Eitner has contributed a port of 4.1.1 to Visual Studio, 
including an F90 port to Intel Fortran. Download source 
(ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/contrib/win32/netcdf-4.1.1-win32-src.zip)
 or binary 
(ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/contrib/win32/netcdf-4.1.1-win32-bin.zip)
 versions. This port was done before the code was refactored in 4.1.2.

Thanks,

Ed

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: CRT-339469
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Critical
Status: Closed