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Re: reading netcdf-4 ubyte datatype [message #74678] Fri, 28 January 2011 11:22 Go to next message
David Fanning is currently offline  David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
Senior Member
Alison writes:

> This is not the desired result, as the 255 has become -1. It seems
> that IDL just doesn't support unsigned bytes in netcdf. Can you
> verify this? or am I missing something here?

Despite outward appearances, I'm not the authority on
what IDL supports. :-)

Have you contacted the folks at ITTVIS? I would
assume (hope, really!) this is a question they
could answer quite easily.

But, I would say, you certainly appear to be correct.

Cheers,

David



--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.idlcoyote.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
Re: reading netcdf-4 ubyte datatype [message #74679 is a reply to message #74678] Fri, 28 January 2011 11:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alison is currently offline  alison
Messages: 7
Registered: October 2004
Junior Member
David,
I don't see a way off-hand to attach a file to this post, so here is
the content of a "test_read.cdl" file which can be used to create a
netcdf4 file with "ncgen -k 3 test_read.cdl".

netcdf test_read {
variables:
ubyte myvar;
data:
myvar = 255;
}

This creates a little netcdf4 file containing a single variable of
type ubyte (unsigned byte) whose value is 255. Trying to read this
file in IDL I get this:

IDL> ncid = ncdf_open('test_read.nc')
% Loaded DLM: NCDF.
IDL> varid = ncdf_varid(ncid,'myvar')
IDL> ncdf_varget, ncid, varid, x
% NCDF_VARGET: File format error. Varid 0 has a unknown type
% Execution halted at: $MAIN$
IDL>

Conversely, if I try to create a netcdf4 file from within IDL and
store an unsigned byte into it, there is not a "ubyte" option
available to the ncdf_vardef command, and if I use the "byte" option,
like this:

x = 255b
ncid = ncdf_create('test_write.nc',/netcdf4_format,/clobber)
varid = ncdf_vardef(ncid,'myvar',/byte)
ncdf_varput, ncid, varid, x

Then, "ncdump test_write.nc" shows that the resulting netcdf4 file
contains this:

netcdf test_write {
variables:
byte myvar ;
data:

myvar = -1 ;
}

This is not the desired result, as the 255 has become -1. It seems
that IDL just doesn't support unsigned bytes in netcdf. Can you
verify this? or am I missing something here?
Alison


On Jan 28, 10:44 am, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> Alison writes:
>> I am using IDL 8.0 for Linux.  I also notice that if I write an IDL
>> "byte" variable (which is unsigned) to a netcdf file, it is written as
>> a netcdf "byte" type (signed), when it should be "ubyte" (unsigned).
>> There doesn't appear to be any way to control the datatype which IDL
>> is automatically choosing when reading/writing from netcdf file.  Is
>> there a way to represent my 8-bit unsigned data so that it is handled
>> properly in both IDL and netcdf-4?
>
> Do you have an example of such a file we can test with?
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.idlcoyote.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
Re: reading netcdf-4 ubyte datatype [message #74682 is a reply to message #74679] Fri, 28 January 2011 09:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
David Fanning is currently offline  David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
Senior Member
Alison writes:

> I am using IDL 8.0 for Linux. I also notice that if I write an IDL
> "byte" variable (which is unsigned) to a netcdf file, it is written as
> a netcdf "byte" type (signed), when it should be "ubyte" (unsigned).
> There doesn't appear to be any way to control the datatype which IDL
> is automatically choosing when reading/writing from netcdf file. Is
> there a way to represent my 8-bit unsigned data so that it is handled
> properly in both IDL and netcdf-4?

Do you have an example of such a file we can test with?

Cheers,

David



--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.idlcoyote.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
Re: reading netcdf-4 ubyte datatype [message #74683 is a reply to message #74682] Fri, 28 January 2011 09:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
alison is currently offline  alison
Messages: 7
Registered: October 2004
Junior Member
Hi,
I am using IDL 8.0 for Linux. I also notice that if I write an IDL
"byte" variable (which is unsigned) to a netcdf file, it is written as
a netcdf "byte" type (signed), when it should be "ubyte" (unsigned).
There doesn't appear to be any way to control the datatype which IDL
is automatically choosing when reading/writing from netcdf file. Is
there a way to represent my 8-bit unsigned data so that it is handled
properly in both IDL and netcdf-4?
Thanks,
Alison

On Jan 28, 4:39 am, Fabzou <fabien.mauss...@tu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Which version of IDL are you using?
>
> IDL 7.1 does not support netCDF 4 files unless you use a patch for new
> data formats (I think it is included in IDL 7.1.1 but I am not sure)
>
> Fabz
>
> On 01/28/2011 02:33 AM, alison wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I'm having trouble reading a netcdf-4 file with "ubyte" type data in
>> it.  I believe that "ubyte" is a valid netcdf-4 datatype (unsigned
>> byte) and should just correspond to IDL "byte" type, but ncdf_varget
>> tells me that datatype is "unknown'.  I get this error msg:
>
>>    % NCDF_VARGET: File format error. Varid 5 has a unknown type
>
>> I don't think it is a file format problem, as I can read this file
>> just fine with Fortran, and it also passes the CF conventions checker
>> cleanly.  Does anyone know how to read the "ubyte" datatype from a
>> netcdf-4 file using IDL?
>> Thanks,
>> Alison Walker
>
>
Re: reading netcdf-4 ubyte datatype [message #74690 is a reply to message #74683] Fri, 28 January 2011 03:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Fabzou is currently offline  Fabzou
Messages: 76
Registered: November 2010
Member
Hi,

Which version of IDL are you using?

IDL 7.1 does not support netCDF 4 files unless you use a patch for new
data formats (I think it is included in IDL 7.1.1 but I am not sure)

Fabz

On 01/28/2011 02:33 AM, alison wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm having trouble reading a netcdf-4 file with "ubyte" type data in
> it. I believe that "ubyte" is a valid netcdf-4 datatype (unsigned
> byte) and should just correspond to IDL "byte" type, but ncdf_varget
> tells me that datatype is "unknown'. I get this error msg:
>
> % NCDF_VARGET: File format error. Varid 5 has a unknown type
>
> I don't think it is a file format problem, as I can read this file
> just fine with Fortran, and it also passes the CF conventions checker
> cleanly. Does anyone know how to read the "ubyte" datatype from a
> netcdf-4 file using IDL?
> Thanks,
> Alison Walker
>
>
Re: reading netcdf-4 ubyte datatype [message #74815 is a reply to message #74678] Thu, 03 February 2011 13:27 Go to previous message
alison is currently offline  alison
Messages: 7
Registered: October 2004
Junior Member
On Jan 28, 12:22 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> Alison writes:
>> This is not the desired result, as the 255 has become -1.  It seems
>> that IDL just doesn't support unsigned bytes in netcdf.  Can you
>> verify this? or am I missing something here?
>
> Despite outward appearances, I'm not the authority on
> what IDL supports. :-)
>
> Have you contacted the folks at ITTVIS? I would
> assume (hope, really!) this is a question they
> could answer quite easily.
>
> But, I would say, you certainly appear to be correct.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.idlcoyote.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

Update: I reported this issue to ittvis tech support. Josh confirmed
it is a bug and will file a bug report.
Alison
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