[ncl-talk] Serious bug in the taper (and taper_n) function with option 1

Mon Aug 23 12:46:59 MDT 2021

Hi Orhan,

Thank you for the reply. Yes, your explanation is very helpful for me to understand the current situation around NCL.

This particular bug I encountered is easy to verify and fix, so it won’t take much time to address – I believe. I tried to provide as much details as I can in the issue ticket.

If it helps you and other developers, I can copy NCL source code from the GitHub repo, apply the fix to a branch, and push it to the GitHub repo for reviews by the core developers. But overall time that core developers need to spend may be just similar.

I also hope that a note for this bug to be added to the NCL webpages for the taper function (and taper_n), once the bug is verified and until the bug fix is included in a future release. That’s something I cannot offer help...

Best regards,

Koichi

From: Orhan Eroglu <oero at ucar.edu>
Date: Monday, August 23, 2021 at 10:59 AM
To: Koichi Sakaguchi <Koichi.Sakaguchi at pnnl.gov>
Cc: "ncl-talk at mailman.ucar.edu" <ncl-talk at mailman.ucar.edu>
Subject: Re: [ncl-talk] Serious bug in the taper (and taper_n) function with option 1

Check twice before you click! This email originated from outside PNNL.

Hello Koichi,

Thanks for your email and detailed explanation, as well as I am sorry to hear the inconveniences you have been having!

As you already mentioned, NCL is in maintenance mode, and we are doing our best to provide support for it (prioritizing Conda installation related issues). However, even those types of issues are leading us to spend days most of the time, sometimes without finding a solution. Since we have several other toolkits in our GeoCAT stack that need to be planned, developed, deployed, and maintained in our daily workflow, sometimes, we can't even check and respond to NCL issues even though we wouldn't like to oversee any support ticket such a vibrant community has.

With all that being said, we are noting down such issues for being addressed in a future bug fix release (the date of which is not current as of today), if the community itself does not resolve the issue with the help of other users/developers.

The community developers are more than welcome to offer any solutions/bug-fixes to such NCL issues.

I hope this helps understand our situation and the tool's maintenance plan.

Regards,

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 11:06 AM Sakaguchi, Koichi via ncl-talk <ncl-talk at mailman.ucar.edu<mailto:ncl-talk at mailman.ucar.edu>> wrote:
Dear NCL support staff and users,

I found a bug in the ncl function taper (and taper_n) such that when the option 1 is chosen the function does not copy all the values of the input array to the output array, except for the portions that are tapered. In my environment (NERSC and PNNL computing facilities), the uncopied values in the output array are all zero. This bug had a serious impact on my work.

The function works correctly when option 0 is chosen. This difference arises because the output array is not initialized properly in the underlying fortran code (taper.f) when option 1 is selected.
I provided more details in the NCL github issues
https://github.com/NCAR/ncl/issues/171<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FNCAR%2Fncl%2Fissues%2F171&data=04%7C01%7CKoichi.Sakaguchi%40pnnl.gov%7Cb31278802a6c4835d4f908d9665fa1f8%7Cd6faa5f90ae240338c0130048a38deeb%7C0%7C0%7C637653383472561729%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=NCK7p%2FsCfS2q4zJgoDYGP%2BRHOh53LbL%2BZgT8tIhwuDA%3D&reserved=0>

I posted a bug report about a month ago following https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Support/posting_guidelines.shtml<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncl.ucar.edu%2FSupport%2Fposting_guidelines.shtml&data=04%7C01%7CKoichi.Sakaguchi%40pnnl.gov%7Cb31278802a6c4835d4f908d9665fa1f8%7Cd6faa5f90ae240338c0130048a38deeb%7C0%7C0%7C637653383472571687%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Ba93xfrdqzJm%2B%2FBvMEAZRUjpK9ioG2vNb%2FSnXVMUH%2B0%3D&reserved=0>, but no responses have been provided, so I am reporting here in the ncl-talk. I see a few even older postings without responses from the developers there... I am aware that NCL is in the maintenance mode without further development, but I think more close and regular attention should be paid to the issues posted on NCL github because NCL is still very widely used.

Best regards,

Koichi

--------------------------------
Koichi Sakaguchi, Ph.D.
Earth Scientist
ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES & GLOBAL CHANGE

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
3200 Innovation Blvd
PO Box 999, MSIN: K9-24
Richland, WA 99352 USA
Phone: 509-375-7385
Fax: 509-375-6448
Email:koichi.sakaguchi at pnnl.gov<mailto:Email%3Akoichi.sakaguchi at pnnl.gov>
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