[netCDF #VZA-166198]: Netcdf

Hi Si,

Sorry it has taken so long to respond to your questions ...
> This is Si Liu from CISL Consulting Services Groups. We are working 
> with Netcdf CPP version recently and have a few questions.
> 
> 1) We saw some error messages like: cannot open source file 
> "netcdfcpp.h",
> since I have "#include <netcdfcpp.h>" in some of my programs.
> 
> I checked/searched it online, but did not find a satisfactory answer.
> It looks like the problem has been noticed and reported, but I do not 
> find the solution to it.

This was the solution, and it claims the fixed "sneaky rerelease" was
made on Sep 11, 2011:

   https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/jira/browse/NCCPP-4

> I also saw some response from Unidata mentioning some re-released 
> version of Netcdf CPP, but can only see one on your website:
> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/netcdf/netcdf-cxx/index.jsp

I see two releases on that web page, where links to the following two 
files appear:

   http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/netcdf/ftp/netcdf-cxx4-4.2.tar.gz
   http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/netcdf/ftp/netcdf-cxx-4.2.tar.gz

The first is the netCDF-4 version, the second is the legacy version.

> 2) Related to 1), it looks like the new Netcdf is not back-compatible 
> to the programs written with Netcdf 4.1.3 or before.
> Is that true? Can the new Netcdf keep the back compatibility.

Yes, that's true.  The new version uses C++ namespaces, exceptions,
and templates (I think?), as well as a redesigned API, so it's not
backward-compatible.  For backward compatibility, we plan to keep
making the legacy version available, but not upgrade it.

> 3) I talked to Dennis Heimbigner before and created a ticket: 
> CWZ-644870.

Yes, sorry that's still open.  We currently have a backlog of 123 open
tickets.

> The concern is about the different versions of the Netcdf C, CPP, and 
> Fortran.
> Do you have any conclusion or update on the issue?

We've recently discussed how to get to a release netCDF-C version 4.3
and netCDF-Fortran version 4.3.  The C++ situation is on the
back-burner, waiting for a bug fix from the HDF5 group to the HDF5 C
library.  This causes an obscure bug in the netCDF-4-C++ software that
you probably won't encounter:

  https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/jira/browse/NCF-155

The plan for netCDF-Fortran is to declare version 4.2 frozen and work
from 4.4-beta to get a new release that uses the Fortran 2003/2008 C
interoperability standards.  But it remains to be seen whether we can
do that, so it's not scheduled yet.

--Russ

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



Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: VZA-166198
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed