[ncl-talk] Incompatibility between addfile and isfilepresent

[Kyle Griffin]

Just setting up 6.2.1 today, and finding that files that CAN be opened with
addfile does not register with isfilepresent. While I could use filexists
to duplicate the old functionality of the command, it would be nice to be
able to take advantage of the "is this an openable file" check before
feeding it to addfile later in my script.

Specifically, the files that are causing this issue are ones that are GRIB2
files but do not contain a file extension. While I can give it the
appropriate file extension to make addfile work (it checks for
'file_name.grb2' as well as simply 'file_name'), this feature does not seem
to exist with isfilepresent and the function returns false for all calls
with or without file extensions.

I feel this isn't the desired implementation of this change to the
function, and I think it might be an easy fix. Any insights? I've included
some command-line interaction with the file below (specific file doesn't
matter, as this issue should be true for any GRIB or GRIB2 file that is on
the file system but has no extension).

Let me know if I can/should provide further evidence, and thanks!


Kyle



ncl 0>
print(isfilepresent("/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000.grb"))

fatal:NetCDF: Unknown file format

fatal:Could not open (/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000)

(0) False

ncl 1>
print(isfilepresent("/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000.grb2"))

fatal:NetCDF: Unknown file format

fatal:Could not open (/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000)

(0) False

ncl 2> a=addfile("/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000.grb","r")


ncl 3> printVarSummary(a)


Variable: a

Type: file

File path: /cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000

Number of global attributes: 0

Number of dimensions: 15

Number of variables: 108

ncl 4>
print(isfilepresent("/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000"))

fatal:NetCDF: Unknown file format

fatal:Could not open (/cas2/unidata/GRIB/gfs0p5deg/GFS_140909_18_000)

(0) False
----------------------------------------
Kyle S. Griffin
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Room 1421
1225 W Dayton St, Madison, WI 53706
Email: ksgriffin2 at wisc.edu
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