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.
re:
The current netcdf-c release has some problems with the mingw platform
on windows. Mostly they are path issues.
Changes to support mingw+msys2:
-------------------------------
* Enable option of looking into the windows registry to find
the mingw root path. In aid of proper path handling.
* Add mingw+msys as a specific platform in configure.ac and move testing
of the platform to the front so it is available early.
* Handle mingw X libncpoco (dynamic loader) properly even though
mingw does not yet support it.
* Handle mingw X plugins properly even though mingw does not yet support it.
* Alias pwd='pwd -W' to better handle paths in shell scripts.
* Plus a number of other minor compile irritations.
* Disallow the use of multiple nc_open's on the same file for windows
(and mingw) because windows does not seem to handle these properly.
Not sure why we did not catch this earlier.
* Add mountpoint info to dpathmgr.c to help support mingw.
* Cleanup dpathmgr conversions.
Known problems:
---------------
* I have not been able to get shared libraries to work, so
plugins/filters must be disabled.
* There is some kind of problem with libcurl that I have not solved,
so all uses of libcurl (currently DAP+Byterange) must be disabled.
Misc. other fixes:
------------------
* Cleanup the relationship between ENABLE_PLUGINS and various other flags
in CMakeLists.txt and configure.ac.
* Re-arrange the TESTDIRS order in Makefile.am.
* Add pseudo-breakpoint to nclog.[ch] for debugging.
* Improve the documentation of the path manager code in ncpathmgr.h
* Add better support for relative paths in dpathmgr.c
* Default the mode args to NCfopen to include "b" (binary) for windows.
* Add optional debugging output in various places.
* Make sure that everything builds with plugins disabled.
* Fix numerous (s)printf inconsistencies betweenb the format spec
and the arguments.
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.
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
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).
