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.
Work in progress / Proof of concept:
Add a capability to disable the tracking of attribute creation order.
See #2054 for details.
This PR adds a `NC_NOATTCREORD` define which can be passed int the
`mode` argument to `nc_create`. If it is present, then the
calls to set the attribute creation order tracking is disabled.
This should only be used for files in which you *know* that the
ordering of the attributes does not matter to *any* potential
readers of this database.
Primary Fixes:
* Add a whole variable optimization -- used in the rare case that nc_get/put_vara covers the whole of a variable and the variable has a single chunk.
* Fix chunking error when stride causes whole chunks to be skipped.
* Fix some memory leaks
* Add test cases
* Add one performance test to nczarr_test/. This uses the timer utils from unit_test: timer_utils.[ch].
* Move ncdumpchunks utility from ncdump to nczarr_test
Misc. Other Changes:
* Make check for aws libraries conditional on --enable-nczarr-s3
* Remove all but one bm tests from nczarr_test until they are working.
* Remove another dependency on HDF5 from supposedly non-HDF5 specific code; specifically hdf5_log_hdf5.
* Make the BAIL2 macro be hdf5 specific and replace elsewhere with an HDF5 independent equivalent.
* Move hdf5cache.c to libsrc4/nc4cache.c because it is used by nczarr.
* Modify unit_tests so that some of them are run even if using Windows.
* Misc. small bug fixes and refactors and memory leaks.
* Rename some conflicting tests for cmake.
* Attempted to make nc_perf work with cmake and failed.
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1836
Revert the internal filter code to simplify it. From the user's
point of view, the only visible changes should be:
1. The functions that convert text to filter specs have had their signature reverted and have been moved to netcdf_aux.h
2. Some filter API functions now return NC_ENOFILTER when inquiry is made about some filter.
Internally,the dispatch table has been modified to get rid of the filter_actions
entry and associated complex structures. It has been replaced with
inq_var_filter_ids and inq_var_filter_info entries and the dispatch table
version has been bumped to 3. Corresponding NOOP and NOTNC4 functions
were added to libdispatch/dnotnc4.c. Also, the filter_action entries
in dispatch tables were replaced for all dispatch code bases (HDF5, DAP2,
etc). This should only impact UDF users.
In the process, it became clear that the form of the filters
field in NC_VAR_INFO_T was format dependent, so I converted it to
be of type void* and pushed its management into the various dispatch
code bases. Specifically libhdf5 and libnczarr now manage the filters
field in their own way.
The auxilliary functions for parsing textual filter specifications
were moved to netcdf_aux.h and were renamed to the following:
* ncaux_h5filterspec_parse
* ncaux_h5filterspec_parselist
* ncaux_h5filterspec_free
* ncaux_h5filter_fix8
Misc. Other Changes:
1. Document NUG/filters.md updated to reflect the changes above.
2. All the old data types (structs and enums)
used by filter_actions actions were deleted.
The exception is the NC_H5_Filterspec because it is needed
by ncaux_h5filterspec_parselist.
3. Clientside filters were removed -- another enhancement
for which no-one ever asked.
4. The ability to remove filters was itself removed.
5. Some functionality needed by nczarr was moved from libhdf5
to libsrc4 e.g. nc4_find_default_chunksizes
6. All the filterx code was removed
7. ncfilter.h and nc4filter.c no longer used
Misc. Unrelated Changes:
1. The nczarr_test makefile clean was leaving some directories; so
add clean-local to take care of them.
disengagement of enable-netcdf4 from enable-hdf5.
That is, with the advent of nczarr, it is possible
to turn off hdf5 but still need netcdf-4 enabled
because nczarr uses libsrc4, but not libhdf5.
This change involves a bunch of things:
1. Modify configure.ac and CMakelist to make enable_hdf5
control if hdf5 support is provided. For back compatibility,
disable-netcdf4 is treated as disable-hdf5. But internally,
netcdf4 support is controlled only by the enabling of formats
that require it.
2. In support of #1, modify .travis.yml to use enable/disable-hdf5
instead of enable/disable-netcdf4.
3. test_common.in is modified to track selected features,
including enable-hdf5 and enable-s3-tests. This is used in
selected tests that mix netcdf-3 and netcdf4 tests.
4. The conflation of USE_HDF5 and USE_NETCDF4 is common in
code, tests, and build files, so all of those had to be weeded out.
5. It turns out that some of the NC4_dim functions really are HDF5 specific,
but are not treated as such. So they are moved from nc4dim.c to
hdf5dim.c or hdf5dispatch.c
6. Some generic functions in libhdf5 can be (and were) moved to libsrc4.
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.
re: Github issue https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1713
If nc_def_var_filter or nc_def_var_deflate or nc_def_var_szip is
called multiple times with the same filter id, but possibly with
different sets of parameters, then the first invocation is
sticky and later invocations are ignored. The desired behavior
is to have the last invocation be used.
This PR implements that desired behavior, with some special
cases. If you call nc_def_var_deflate multiple times, then the
last invocation rule applies with respect to deflate. However,
the shuffle filter, if enabled, is always applied just before
applying deflate.
Misc unrelated changes:
1. Make client-side filters be disabled by default
2. Fix the definition of uintptr_t and use in oc2 and libdap4
3. Add some test cases
4. modify filter order tests to use plugin filters rather
than client-side filters
nc4internal.c contains code to free the format_XXX_info
fields. Since these are format specific, this code
was moved to the dispatch code (libhdf5 and libhdf4
in the current case).
Additionally, there are some fields in nc4internal.h (e.g.
dimscale fields) that are specific to HDF5 and have been moved
to the corresponding HDF5 data structures and code.
Misc. other changes:
1. NC_VAR_INFO_T->hdf5_name renamed to alt_name to avoid
implying it is necessarily HDF5 specific.
2. prefix NC_FILE_INFO_T with an instance of NC_OBJ for consistency.
this also requires wrapping move_in_NCList() to keep
hdr.id consistent.
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1584
Support has been added for multiple filters per variable. This
affects a number of components in netcdf. The new APIs are
documented in NUG/filters.md.
The primary changes are:
* A set of new functions are provided (see __include/netcdf_filter.h__).
- Obtain a list of the filters associated with a variable
- Obtain the parameters for a specific filter.
* The existing __nc_inq_var_filter__ function now returns info
about the first defined filter.
* The utilities (ncgen, ncdump, and nccopy) now support
an extended format for specifying a sequence of filters.
The general form is __<filter>|<filter>..._.
* The ncdump **_Filter** attribute now dumps a list of all the
filters associated with a variable using the above new format.
* Filter specifications can now use a filter name instead of number
for filters known to the netcdf library, which in turn is taken
from the HDF5 filter registration page.
* New errors are defined: NC_EFILTER and NC_ENOFILTER. The latter
is returned if an attempt is made to access an unknown filter.
* Internally, the dispatch table has been extended to add a function
to handle all of the filter functions.
* New, filter-related, tests were added to nc_test4.
* A new plugin was added to the plugins directory to help with testing.
Notes:
1. The shuffle and fletcher32 filters are not part of the multifilter system.
Misc. changes:
1. A debug module was added to libhdf5 to help catch error locations.
1) We have to use H5Tequal() to compare HDF5 type IDs.
2) When checking if we can re-use an NC_CHAR attribute it is enough to
compare data types (H5Tequal() takes care of the size comparison).
3) This commit adds missing code (reuse_att was set but not used).
Now an attribute in a NetCDF-4 file can be modified as many times as
necessary, as long its type and length remain the same.
Modifications changing either type or length of an attribute require
deleting and re-creating an attribute which increments the attribute
order creation index. Once this index reaches 65535 all attribute
modifications (for a particular group or variable) will fail.
For reference:
Issue 350 title: NetCDF-4 limits the number of times an attribute can
be modified
Pull request 1119 title: Fix checking for HDF5 max dims, no longer
re-create atts if not needed, confirm behavior for HDF5 cyclical
files, allow user to set mpiexec
Priority: Low
re: issue https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1329
HDF5 has the ability to programmatically define new filters,
as opposed to using HDF5_PLUGIN_PATH env variable.
This PR adds support for that feature.
Not clear how useful this is, though.
See docs/filters.md for details.
