<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div>Hi Matthias,<br><br></div>I think maybe we have explaination. The so-called "brace-expansion" appears to be a bash thing. I speculate your shell in your terminal window is indeed bash. However, by default, NCL under the covers invokes "/bin/sh" during the systemfunc() call. On many Linux systems, /bin/sh is simply a symlink to bash (that's the case on my system and why things work for me). However, apparently on Ubuntu systems, /bin/sh is a symlink to a shell called "dash" (I'd never heard of it), and dash is the one that does not understand brace-expansion -- you can try it yourself by invoking "dash" on the command-line and then trying a command that involves brace-expansion. More on this here:<br><br> <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/87853/what-is-default-shell-for-terminal">http://askubuntu.com/questions/87853/what-is-default-shell-for-terminal</a><br><br></div>So a solution in your case would be something like this:<br><br></div> files = systemfunc("bash -c 'ls /DIRECTORY/*{.nc,.hdf,.pdf}'")<br><br></div>In particular note the "-c" switch to bash, and that the command you want bash to execute is surrounded by single-quotes.<br><br></div>Hope that helps...<br></div>Rick<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 12:54 PM, Matthias Demuzere <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Matthias.Demuzere@ugent.be" target="_blank">Matthias.Demuzere@ugent.be</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div dir="auto">Hi Rick,
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Yes... I tested this for a single string without curly brackets (eg. *.nc) and that works fine ...</div>
<div dir="auto">Does this indicate there is somehow a system dependency, even though the curly brackets do work directly in the terminal? Quite puzzling, no?</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Matthias</div>
</font></span></div><div><div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 10 Feb 2017 18:30, Rick Brownrigg <<a href="mailto:brownrig@ucar.edu" target="_blank">brownrig@ucar.edu</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="m_4585874273660185032quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>Hi Matthias,<br>
<br>
</div>
That is very odd -- it works for me, both at bash command line and using systemfunc() from within NCL. Can you get systemfunc to return files from a directory without using "{}" notation, .i.e, "ls *" for example? Or simply "ls foo" where the file foo is known
to exist in the current directory?<br>
<br>
</div>
Rick<br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div class="m_4585874273660185032elided-text">On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 10:15 AM, Matthias Demuzere <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:matthias.demuzere@ugent.be" target="_blank">matthias.demuzere@ugent.be</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>Dear all,<br>
<br>
I am currently testing the CVDP (<a href="http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/working_groups/CVC/cvdp/" target="_blank">http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/work<wbr>ing_groups/CVC/cvdp/</a>) which is written in ncl.<br>
Currently the software does not run because it can't find the proper datasets. <br>
<br>
Finding the data is driven by the <b>systemfunc</b> command using curly brackets (multiple options).<br>
For example, within ncl, I want to list all files that have one of the following extension: .nc, .hdf, .pdf.<br>
<br>
This I do with:<br>
myFiles = systemfunc("ls /DIRECTORY/*{.nc,.hdf,.pdf}")<br>
<br>
If I fo this in ncl, I get an error: ls: cannot access '/DIRECTORY/*{.nc,.hdf,.pdf}': No such file or directory<br>
<br>
Yet, when pasting ls /DIRECTORY/*{.nc,.hdf,.pdf} directly in my system (ubuntu 16.04, 64bit) terminal, I do get a list of the finals with this extension. So the expected result.<br>
<br>
I have tested this in ncl-6.3.0 and 6.2.1, but I have the same problem in both.<br>
Did anyone else notice this before? Any idea on how to fix this?<br>
<br>
Thanks!<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Matthias<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre>--
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
_____________________________
UGent [Home]
Department of Forest and Water Management
Laboratory for Hydrology and Water Management
Coupure links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
Email: <a href="mailto:Matthias.demuzere@UGent.be" target="_blank">Matthias.demuzere@UGent.be</a>
Web: <a href="http://www.ugent.be/bw/dfwm/en/research/LHWM/staff/matthias" target="_blank">http://www.ugent.be/bw/dfwm/en<wbr>/research/LHWM/staff/matthias</a>
KU Leuven [Affiliated]
Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences
Division of Geography and Tourism / Regional climate studies
Celestijnenlaan 200E, B-3001 Heverlee (Leuven), Belgium
Email: <a href="mailto:matthias.demuzere@kuleuven.be" target="_blank">matthias.demuzere@kuleuven.be</a>
Web: <a href="https://ees.kuleuven.be/geography/rcs" target="_blank">https://ees.kuleuven.be/geogra<wbr>phy/rcs</a></pre>
</div>
<br>
______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
ncl-talk mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:ncl-talk@ucar.edu" target="_blank">ncl-talk@ucar.edu</a><br>
List instructions, subscriber options, unsubscribe:<br>
<a href="http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk" target="_blank">http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailma<wbr>n/listinfo/ncl-talk</a><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>