re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/541
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1208
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/2078
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/2041
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/2143
For a long time, there have been known problems with the
management of complex types containing VLENs. This also
involves the string type because it is stored as a VLEN of
chars.
This PR (mostly) fixes this problem. But note that it adds new
functions to netcdf.h (see below) and this may require bumping
the .so number. These new functions can be removed, if desired,
in favor of functions in netcdf_aux.h, but netcdf.h seems the
better place for them because they are intended as alternatives
to the nc_free_vlen and nc_free_string functions already in
netcdf.h.
The term complex type refers to any type that directly or
transitively references a VLEN type. So an array of VLENS, a
compound with a VLEN field, and so on.
In order to properly handle instances of these complex types, it
is necessary to have function that can recursively walk
instances of such types to perform various actions on them. The
term "deep" is also used to mean recursive.
At the moment, the two operations needed by the netcdf library are:
* free'ing an instance of the complex type
* copying an instance of the complex type.
The current library does only shallow free and shallow copy of
complex types. This means that only the top level is properly
free'd or copied, but deep internal blocks in the instance are
not touched.
Note that the term "vector" will be used to mean a contiguous (in
memory) sequence of instances of some type. Given an array with,
say, dimensions 2 X 3 X 4, this will be stored in memory as a
vector of length 2*3*4=24 instances.
The use cases are primarily these.
## nc_get_vars
Suppose one is reading a vector of instances using nc_get_vars
(or nc_get_vara or nc_get_var, etc.). These functions will
return the vector in the top-level memory provided. All
interior blocks (form nested VLEN or strings) will have been
dynamically allocated.
After using this vector of instances, it is necessary to free
(aka reclaim) the dynamically allocated memory, otherwise a
memory leak occurs. So, the recursive reclaim function is used
to walk the returned instance vector and do a deep reclaim of
the data.
Currently functions are defined in netcdf.h that are supposed to
handle this: nc_free_vlen(), nc_free_vlens(), and
nc_free_string(). Unfortunately, these functions only do a
shallow free, so deeply nested instances are not properly
handled by them.
Note that internally, the provided data is immediately written so
there is no need to copy it. But the caller may need to reclaim the
data it passed into the function.
## nc_put_att
Suppose one is writing a vector of instances as the data of an attribute
using, say, nc_put_att.
Internally, the incoming attribute data must be copied and stored
so that changes/reclamation of the input data will not affect
the attribute.
Again, the code inside the netcdf library does only shallow copying
rather than deep copy. As a result, one sees effects such as described
in Github Issue https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/2143.
Also, after defining the attribute, it may be necessary for the user
to free the data that was provided as input to nc_put_att().
## nc_get_att
Suppose one is reading a vector of instances as the data of an attribute
using, say, nc_get_att.
Internally, the existing attribute data must be copied and returned
to the caller, and the caller is responsible for reclaiming
the returned data.
Again, the code inside the netcdf library does only shallow copying
rather than deep copy. So this can lead to memory leaks and errors
because the deep data is shared between the library and the user.
# Solution
The solution is to build properly recursive reclaim and copy
functions and use those as needed.
These recursive functions are defined in libdispatch/dinstance.c
and their signatures are defined in include/netcdf.h.
For back compatibility, corresponding "ncaux_XXX" functions
are defined in include/netcdf_aux.h.
````
int nc_reclaim_data(int ncid, nc_type xtypeid, void* memory, size_t count);
int nc_reclaim_data_all(int ncid, nc_type xtypeid, void* memory, size_t count);
int nc_copy_data(int ncid, nc_type xtypeid, const void* memory, size_t count, void* copy);
int nc_copy_data_all(int ncid, nc_type xtypeid, const void* memory, size_t count, void** copyp);
````
There are two variants. The first two, nc_reclaim_data() and
nc_copy_data(), assume the top-level vector is managed by the
caller. For reclaim, this is so the user can use, for example, a
statically allocated vector. For copy, it assumes the user
provides the space into which the copy is stored.
The second two, nc_reclaim_data_all() and
nc_copy_data_all(), allows the functions to manage the
top-level. So for nc_reclaim_data_all, the top level is
assumed to be dynamically allocated and will be free'd by
nc_reclaim_data_all(). The nc_copy_data_all() function
will allocate the top level and return a pointer to it to the
user. The user can later pass that pointer to
nc_reclaim_data_all() to reclaim the instance(s).
# Internal Changes
The netcdf-c library internals are changed to use the proper
reclaim and copy functions. It turns out that the places where
these functions are needed is quite pervasive in the netcdf-c
library code. Using these functions also allows some
simplification of the code since the stdata and vldata fields of
NC_ATT_INFO are no longer needed. Currently this is commented
out using the SEPDATA \#define macro. When any bugs are largely
fixed, all this code will be removed.
# Known Bugs
1. There is still one known failure that has not been solved.
All the failures revolve around some variant of this .cdl file.
The proximate cause of failure is the use of a VLEN FillValue.
````
netcdf x {
types:
float(*) row_of_floats ;
dimensions:
m = 5 ;
variables:
row_of_floats ragged_array(m) ;
row_of_floats ragged_array:_FillValue = {-999} ;
data:
ragged_array = {10, 11, 12, 13, 14}, {20, 21, 22, 23}, {30, 31, 32},
{40, 41}, _ ;
}
````
When a solution is found, I will either add it to this PR or post a new PR.
# Related Changes
* Mark nc_free_vlen(s) as deprecated in favor of ncaux_reclaim_data.
* Remove the --enable-unfixed-memory-leaks option.
* Remove the NC_VLENS_NOTEST code that suppresses some vlen tests.
* Document this change in docs/internal.md
* Disable the tst_vlen_data test in ncdump/tst_nccopy4.sh.
* Mark types as fixed size or not (transitively) to optimize the reclaim
and copy functions.
# Misc. Changes
* Make Doxygen process libdispatch/daux.c
* Make sure the NC_ATT_INFO_T.container field is set.
The netcdf-c code has to deal with a variety of platforms:
Windows, OSX, Linux, Cygwin, MSYS, etc. These platforms differ
significantly in the kind of file paths that they accept. So in
order to handle this, I have created a set of replacements for
the most common file system operations such as _open_ or _fopen_
or _access_ to manage the file path differences correctly.
A more limited version of this idea was already implemented via
the ncwinpath.h and dwinpath.c code. So this can be viewed as a
replacement for that code. And in path in many cases, the only
change that was required was to replace '#include <ncwinpath.h>'
with '#include <ncpathmgt.h>' and then replace file operation
calls with the NCxxx equivalent from ncpathmgr.h Note that
recently, the ncwinpath.h was renamed ncpathmgmt.h, so this pull
request should not require dealing with winpath.
The heart of the change is include/ncpathmgmt.h, which provides
alternate operations such as NCfopen or NCaccess and which properly
parse and rebuild path arguments to work for the platform on which
the code is executing. This mostly matters for Windows because of the
way that it uses backslash and drive letters, as compared to *nix*.
One important feature is that the user can do string manipulations
on a file path without having to worry too much about the platform
because the path management code will properly handle most mixed cases.
So one can for example concatenate a path suffix that uses forward
slashes to a Windows path and have it work correctly.
The conversion code is in libdispatch/dpathmgr.c, and the
important function there is NCpathcvt which does the proper
conversions to the local path format.
As a rule, most code should just replace their file operations with
the corresponding NCxxx ones defined in include/ncpathmgmt.h. These
NCxxx functions all call NCpathcvt on their path arguments before
executing the actual file operation.
In some rare cases, the client may need to directly use NCpathcvt,
but this should be avoided as much as possible. If there is a need
for supporting a new file operation not already in ncpathmgmt.h, then
use the code in dpathmgr.c as a template. Also please notify Unidata
so we can include it as a formal part or our supported operations.
Also, if you see an operation in the library that is not using the
NCxxx form, then please submit an issue so we can fix it.
Misc. Changes:
* Clean up the utf8 testing code; it is impossible to get some
tests to work under windows using shell scripts; the args do
not pass as utf8 but as some other encoding.
* Added an extra utf8 test case: test_unicode_path.sh
* Add a true test for HDF5 1.10.6 or later because as noted in
PR https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/1794,
HDF5 changed its Windows file path handling.
cloud using a variant of the Zarr protocol and storage
format. This enhancement is generically referred to as "NCZarr".
The data model supported by NCZarr is netcdf-4 minus the user-defined
types and the String type. In this sense it is similar to the CDF-5
data model.
More detailed information about enabling and using NCZarr is
described in the document NUG/nczarr.md and in a
[Unidata Developer's blog entry](https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/developer/en/entry/overview-of-zarr-support-in).
WARNING: this code has had limited testing, so do use this version
for production work. Also, performance improvements are ongoing.
Note especially the following platform matrix of successful tests:
Platform | Build System | S3 support
------------------------------------
Linux+gcc | Automake | yes
Linux+gcc | CMake | yes
Visual Studio | CMake | no
Additionally, and as a consequence of the addition of NCZarr,
major changes have been made to the Filter API. NOTE: NCZarr
does not yet support filters, but these changes are enablers for
that support in the future. Note that it is possible
(probable?) that there will be some accidental reversions if the
changes here did not correctly mimic the existing filter testing.
In any case, previously filter ids and parameters were of type
unsigned int. In order to support the more general zarr filter
model, this was all converted to char*. The old HDF5-specific,
unsigned int operations are still supported but they are
wrappers around the new, char* based nc_filterx_XXX functions.
This entailed at least the following changes:
1. Added the files libdispatch/dfilterx.c and include/ncfilter.h
2. Some filterx utilities have been moved to libdispatch/daux.c
3. A new entry, "filter_actions" was added to the NCDispatch table
and the version bumped.
4. An overly complex set of structs was created to support funnelling
all of the filterx operations thru a single dispatch
"filter_actions" entry.
5. Move common code to from libhdf5 to libsrc4 so that it is accessible
to nczarr.
Changes directly related to Zarr:
1. Modified CMakeList.txt and configure.ac to support both C and C++
-- this is in support of S3 support via the awd-sdk libraries.
2. Define a size64_t type to support nczarr.
3. More reworking of libdispatch/dinfermodel.c to
support zarr and to regularize the structure of the fragments
section of a URL.
Changes not directly related to Zarr:
1. Make client-side filter registration be conditional, with default off.
2. Hack include/nc4internal.h to make some flags added by Ed be unique:
e.g. NC_CREAT, NC_INDEF, etc.
3. cleanup include/nchttp.h and libdispatch/dhttp.c.
4. Misc. changes to support compiling under Visual Studio including:
* Better testing under windows for dirent.h and opendir and closedir.
5. Misc. changes to the oc2 code to support various libcurl CURLOPT flags
and to centralize error reporting.
6. By default, suppress the vlen tests that have unfixed memory leaks; add option to enable them.
7. Make part of the nc_test/test_byterange.sh test be contingent on remotetest.unidata.ucar.edu being accessible.
Changes Left TO-DO:
1. fix provenance code, it is too HDF5 specific.
This is a follow up to PR https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/1173
Sorry that it is so big, but leak suppression can be complex.
This PR fixes all remaining memory leaks -- as determined by
-fsanitize=address, and with the exceptions noted below.
Unfortunately. there remains a significant leak that I cannot
solve. It involves vlens, and it is unclear if the leak is
occurring in the netcdf-c library or the HDF5 library.
I have added a check_PROGRAM to the ncdump directory to show the
problem. The program is called tst_vlen_demo.c To exercise it,
build the netcdf library with -fsanitize=address enabled. Then
go into ncdump and do a "make clean check". This should build
tst_vlen_demo without actually executing it. Then do the
command "./tst_vlen_demo" to see the output of the memory
checker. Note the the lost malloc is deep in the HDF5 library
(in H5Tvlen.c).
I am temporarily working around this error in the following way.
1. I modified several test scripts to not execute known vlen tests
that fail as described above.
2. Added an environment variable called NC_VLEN_NOTEST.
If set, then those specific tests are suppressed.
This should mean that the --disable-utilities option to
./configure should not need to be set to get a memory leak clean
build. This should allow for detection of any new leaks.
Note: I used an environment variable rather than a ./configure
option to control the vlen tests. This is because it is
temporary (I hope) and because it is a bit tricky for shell
scripts to access ./configure options.
Finally, as before, this only been tested with netcdf-4 and hdf5 support.
stored in the _NCProperties attribute to allow two things:
1. capture of additional library dependencies (over and above
hdf5)
2. Recognition of non-netcdf libraries that create netcdf-4 format
files.
To this end, the _NCProperties format has been extended to be
and arbitrary set of key=value pairs separated by commas.
This new format has version = 2, and uses commas as the pair separator.
Thus the general form is:
_NCProperties = "version=2,key1=value,key2=value2..." ;
This new version is accompanied by a new ./configure option of the form
--with-ncproperties="key1=value1,key2=value2..."
that specifies pairs to add to the _NCProperties attribute for all
files created with that netcdf library.
At this point, what is missing is some programmatic way to
specify either all the pairs or additional pairs
to the _NCProperties attribute. Not sure of the best way
to do this.
Builders using non-netcdf libraries can specify
whatever they want in the key value pairs (as long
as the version=2 is specified first).
By convention, the primary library is expected to be the
the first pair after the leading version=2 pair, but this
is convention only and is neither required nor enforced.
Related changes:
1. Fixed the tests that check _NCProperties to properly operate with version=2.
2. When reading a version 1 _NCProperties attribute, convert it to look
like a version 2 attribute.
2. Added some version 2 tests to ncdump/tst_fileinfo.c and
ncdump/tst_fileinfo.sh
Misc Changes:
1. Fix minor problem in ncdap_test/testurl.sh where a parameter to
buildurl needed to be quoted.
2. Minor fix to ncgen to swap switches -H and -h to be consistent
with other utilities.
3. Document the -M flag in nccopy usage() and the nccopy man page.
4. Modify a test case to use the nccopy -M flag.
re pull request https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/405
re pull request https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/446
Notes:
1. This branch is a cleanup of the magic.dmh branch.
2. magic.dmh was originally merged, but caused problems with parallel IO.
It was re-issued as pull request https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/446.
3. This branch + pull request replace any previous pull requests and magic.dmh branch.
Given an otherwise valid netCDF file that has a corrupted header,
the netcdf library currently crashes. Instead, it should return
NC_ENOTNC.
Additionally, the NC_check_file_type code does not do the
forward search required by hdf5 files. It currently only looks
at file position 0 instead of 512, 1024, 2048,... Also, it turns
out that the HDF4 magic number is assumed to always be at the
beginning of the file (unlike HDF5).
The change is localized to libdispatch/dfile.c See
https://support.hdfgroup.org/release4/doc/DSpec_html/DS.pdf
Also, it turns out that the code in NC_check_file_type is duplicated
(mostly) in the function libsrc4/nc4file.c#nc_check_for_hdf.
This branch does the following.
1. Make NC_check_file_type return NC_ENOTNC instead of crashing.
2. Remove nc_check_for_hdf and centralize all file format checking
NC_check_file_type.
3. Add proper forward search for HDF5 files (but not HDF4 files)
to look for the magic number at offsets of 0, 512, 1024...
4. Add test tst_hdf5_offset.sh. This tests that hdf5 files with
an offset are properly recognized. It does so by prefixing
a legal file with some number of zero bytes: 512, 1024, etc.
5. Off-topic: Added -N flag to ncdump to force a specific output dataset name.
Specific changes:
1. Add dap4 code: libdap4 and dap4_test.
Note that until the d4ts server problem is solved, dap4 is turned off.
2. Modify various files to support dap4 flags:
configure.ac, Makefile.am, CMakeLists.txt, etc.
3. Add nc_test/test_common.sh. This centralizes
the handling of the locations of various
things in the build tree: e.g. where is
ncgen.exe located. See nc_test/test_common.sh
for details.
4. Modify .sh files to use test_common.sh
5. Obsolete separate oc2 by moving it to be part of
netcdf-c. This means replacing code with netcdf-c
equivalents.
5. Add --with-testserver to configure.ac to allow
override of the servers to be used for --enable-dap-remote-tests.
6. There were multiple versions of nctypealignment code. Try to
centralize in libdispatch/doffset.c and include/ncoffsets.h
7. Add a unit test for the ncuri code because of its complexity.
8. Move the findserver code out of libdispatch and into
a separate, self contained program in ncdap_test and dap4_test.
9. Move the dispatch header files (nc{3,4}dispatch.h) to
.../include because they are now shared by modules.
10. Revamp the handling of TOPSRCDIR and TOPBUILDDIR for shell scripts.
11. Make use of MREMAP if available
12. Misc. minor changes e.g.
- #include <config.h> -> #include "config.h"
- Add some no-install headers to /include
- extern -> EXTERNL and vice versa as needed
- misc header cleanup
- clean up checking for misc. unix vs microsoft functions
13. Change copyright decls in some files to point to LICENSE file.
14. Add notes to RELEASENOTES.md
This consists of a persistent attribute named
_NCProperties plus two computed attributes
_IsNetcdf4 and _SuperblockVersion.
See the 'Provenance Attributes' section
of docs/attribute_conventions.md for details.
The code for handling character constants
in datalists in ncgen has some problems.
1. It failed on large constants
2. It did not handle e.g. var = 'a', 'b', ...
in the same way that ncgen3 did.
3. The code for generate.c and genchar.c needed
some refactoring to make it a little simpler
(but not simple).
Columbia server does not serve up proper
opendap DDS replies. The Dataset {...} name
changes depending on if the request has certain
kinds of constraints.
Code for a hack was not being used, so restore it.
The fix is to effectively ignore differences in
Dataset node names if the code is coming from
columbia.edu.
2. [NCF-278]
The ncgen code is improperly typing int64 integer constants
as uint64.
3. [NCF-279]
Empty string constants were not being properly
filled when their target array is length 1 or more.
1. Updated the ncgen manual (ncgen.1)
to discuss handling of ambiguous
enumeration constant references.
2. Fixed the test case. It is currently
XFAIL'd until such time as ncdump
is modified to output properly
disambiguated enumeration constant
references.
implementation. Deleted obsolete win32, soon to be replaced by Ward's
Windows 32- and 64-bit fixes for building with MSYS/MinGW. Made
cosmetic cleanup to output of "make check" to make it easier for users
to interpret. Fixed bug NCF-175: ncdump -t incorrectly interpreting
units attribute (such as "days") without a base time (such as "since
2007-01-01") as a time unit.
Changed name to 4.2.1-beta.
naming convention.
o Modified ncdump shell, test scripts so that the extra
digit in an exponent on windows wouldn't be a problem.
o Modified configure.ac to check for the zlib dll provided
by the zlib group; they recommend using the official dll for
windows builds.
