[ncl-install] ncl error: loading scripts

[Scott Rabenhorst]

Dear NCL developer,

I have installed the following NCL packages on my Debian 8.2 machine 
through the apt-get interface:
dpkg -l | grep -i ncar
ii  libncarg-bin         6.2.0-3+b1   amd64   NCAR command-language 
library - development tools
ii  libncarg-data        6.2.0-3      all     NCAR command-language 
library - Data
ii  libncarg-dev:amd64   6.2.0-3+b1   amd64   Development files for the 
NCAR command language library
ii  libncarg0:amd64      6.2.0-3+b1   amd64   NCAR command-language library
ii  ncl-ncarg            6.2.0-3+b1   amd64   NCAR Command Language and 
NCAR graphics

which places package files in the following directories:
/usr/bin/* ...
/usr/include/* ...
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/* ...
/usr/share/doc/* ...
/usr/share/man/* ...
/usr/share/ncarg/* ...

and therefore I set environment variables in the ~/.bashrc file accordingly:
export      NCARG_ROOT=/usr
export       NCARG_MAN=$NCARG_ROOT/share/man
export   NCARG_INCLUDE=$NCARG_ROOT/include
export       NCARG_LIB=$NCARG_ROOT/lib
export     NCARG_NCARG=$NCARG_ROOT/share/ncarg
export NCARG_COLORMAPS=$NCARG_NCARG/colormaps

Since these packages do not conform to the traditional directory 
structure, I added the following symbolic link to point ncl to the ncarg 
directory:
sudo ln -s /usr/share/ncarg /usr/lib/ncarg
ls -lh /usr/lib/ncar*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Jan 14 14:11 /usr/lib/ncarg -> /usr/share/ncarg/

However, I am perplexed by a bizarre error when loading scripts as shown 
below:
ncl
  Copyright (C) 1995-2014 - All Rights Reserved
  University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
  NCAR Command Language Version 6.2.0
  The use of this software is governed by a License Agreement.
  See http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/ for more details.
ncl 0> load "$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRFUserARW.ncl"
fatal:Could not open ($NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRFUserARW.ncl)
fatal:error at line 0
ncl 1> load "$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRFUserARW.ncl"

However, if I repeat the same load command again, it works the second 
time. This is quite problematic when running a batch of scripts with 
multiple ncl instances (e.g. ncl -nQ SomeScriptThatCallsLoad.ncl) which 
all abort with an error after the first load command. Hardcoding the 
path appears to solve the immediate problem, but eventually results in 
errors because of other scripts that call load with environment variables:
ncl
  Copyright (C) 1995-2014 - All Rights Reserved
  University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
  NCAR Command Language Version 6.2.0
  The use of this software is governed by a License Agreement.
  See http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/ for more details.
ncl 0> load "/usr/share/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRFUserARW.ncl"
fatal:Could not open ($NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/csm/contributed.ncl)
fatal:error at line 1 in file /usr/share/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRFUserARW.ncl

Although ncl errors state the above scripts cannot be opened, 
file/directory permissions show everyone has read/execute access. 
Furthermore, these files are verified to exist when using the exact same 
environment variable syntax on the shell command line:
ls -lh $NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/*.ncl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9.7K Oct 10  2014 
/usr/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRF_contributed.ncl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 156K Oct 10  2014 
/usr/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/wrf/WRFUserARW.ncl

Could you please provide some suggestions regarding what may be going 
wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Scott
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