Update the following documentation files:
## docs/FAQ.md
* Discuss the use of UTF-8 names under Windows 10+.
## docs/filters.md
* Add documentation about NCzarr filters.
* Specifically Codec support and HDF5 <-> Codec translation
* Add documentation about standard filters
## docs/dispatch.md
* Convert from .dox format to .md (markdown) format.
* Add discussion about the user defined dispatch tables.
* Update the example.
* Abbreviate the NC_infermodel documentation and move the more detailed discusion to the companion *dinternal.md* documenation.
## docs/internal.md
This is a (mostly) new file that attempts to provide detailed
descriptions about how various features are implemented inside
the netcdf-c library. The topics currently covered the
following.
### Including C++ Code in the netcdf-c Library {#intern_c++}
The state of C compiler technology has reached the point where
it is possible to include C++ code into the netcdf-c library
code base. The document describes how to do this.
### Managing instances of complex data types
The document describes how to properly handle instances of
complex types (those with variable length). This involves
having functions that can recursively walk instances of such
types to perform various actions on them. These new functions
are intended to replace the *nc_free_vlen*, *nc_free_vlens* and
*nc_free_string* functions in *netcdf.h*.
### Inferring File Types
As described in the companion document -- docs/dispatch.md --
when *nc\_create()* or *nc\_open()* is called, the library must
figure out what kind of file is being created or opened. Once it
has figured out the file kind, the appropriate "dispatch table"
can be used to process that file.
As a result of the introduction of remote data access to the netcdf-c
library, the path arguments to *nc\_open()* and *nc\_create()* have
been extended to support URLs as paths. Processing URLs requires
some significant changes to the file inference algorithm. The
details of that processing are recorded in the document.
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/2177
re: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/2178
Provide get/set functions to store global data alignment
information and apply it when a file is created.
The api is as follows:
````
int nc_set_alignment(int threshold, int alignment);
int nc_get_alignment(int* thresholdp, int* alignmentp);
````
If defined, then for every file created opened after the call to
nc_set_alignment, for every new variable added to the file, the
most recently set threshold and alignment values will be applied
to that variable.
The nc_get_alignment function return the last values set by
nc_set_alignment. If nc_set_alignment has not been called, then
it returns the value 0 for both threshold and alignment.
The alignment parameters are stored in the NCglobalstate object
(see below) for use as needed. Repeated calls to nc_set_alignment
will overwrite any existing values in NCglobalstate.
The alignment parameters are applied in libhdf5/hdf5create.c
and libhdf5/hdf5open.c
The set/get alignment functions are defined in libsrc4/nc4internal.c.
A test program was added as nc_test4/tst_alignment.c.
## Misc. Changes Unrelated to Alignment
* The NCRCglobalstate type was renamed to NCglobalstate to
indicate that it represented more general global state than
just .rc data. It was also moved to nc4internal.h. This led
to a large number of small changes: mostly renaming. The
global state management functions were moved to nc4internal.c.
* The global chunk cache variables have been moved into
NCglobalstate. As warranted, other global state will be moved
as well.
* Some misc. problems with the nczarr performance tests were corrected.
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.
## S3 Related Fixes
* Add comprehensive support for specifying AWS profiles to provide access credentials.
* Parse the files "~/.aws/config" and "~/.aws/credentials to provide credentials for the HDF5 ROS3 driver and to locate default region.
* Add a function to obtain the currently active S3 credentials. The search rules are defined in docs/nczarr.md.
* Provide documentation for the new features.
* Modify the struct NCauth (in include/ncauth.h) to replace specific S3 credentials with a profile name.
* Add a unit test to test the operation of profile and credentials management.
* Add support for URLS of the form "s3://<bucket>/<key>"; this requires obtaining a default region.
* Allows the specification of profile and/or region in a URL of the form "#mode=nczarr,...&aws.region=...&aws.profile=..."
## Misc. Fixes
* Move the ezxml code to libdispatch so that it can be used both by DAP4 and nczarr.
* Modify nclist to provide a deep clone operation.
* Modify ncuri to provide a deep clone operation.
* Modify the .rc file format to allow the specification of a path to be tested when looking for an entry in the .rc file.
* Ensure that the NC_rcload function is called.
* Modify nchttp to support setting request headers.
re: https://github.com/zarr-developers/zarr-specs/issues/41
After discussions with the Zarr community, it was decided to
convert to a new representation of the NCZarr meta-data extensions: version 2.
These extensions store information necessary to mapping the Zarr data model
to the netcdf-4 data model.
The basic change is to remove the NCZarr specific objects: .nczarr, .nczgroup, .nczarray, and .nczattr.
The contents of these objects is moved into the corresponding existing Zarr objects as special keys. The mapping is as follows:
* ''.nczarr'' => ''/.zgroup/_NCZARR_SUPERBLOCK_''
* ''.nczgroup => ''.zgroup/_NCZARR_GROUP_''
* ''.nczarray => ''.zarray/_NCZARR_ARRAY_''
* ''.nczattr => ''.zattr/_NCZARR_ATTR_''
Backward compatibility is maintained by looking for the object ''/.nczarr''
and if found, then assuming that the dataset is in the older version 1 format.
This compatibility only supports reading of such version 1 datasets.
Documentation and test cases are also added.
Misc. Other Changes:
1. The json parsing code was added to the general library instead of nczarr only (ncjson.c, ncjson.h).
2. Improved support for different platform paths by allowing conversion
to a single common path representation.
3. Add some new error codes.
4. Modify nccopy usage to mention the new chunking specification.
re: issue https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1251
Assume that you have the URL to a remote dataset
which is a normal netcdf-3 or netcdf-4 file.
This PR allows the netcdf-c to read that dataset's
contents as a netcdf file using HTTP byte ranges
if the remote server supports byte-range access.
Originally, this PR was set up to access Amazon S3 objects,
but it can also access other remote datasets such as those
provided by a Thredds server via the HTTPServer access protocol.
It may also work for other kinds of servers.
Note that this is not intended as a true production
capability because, as is known, this kind of access to
can be quite slow. In addition, the byte-range IO drivers
do not currently do any sort of optimization or caching.
An additional goal here is to gain some experience with
the Amazon S3 REST protocol.
This architecture and its use documented in
the file docs/byterange.dox.
There are currently two test cases:
1. nc_test/tst_s3raw.c - this does a simple open, check format, close cycle
for a remote netcdf-3 file and a remote netcdf-4 file.
2. nc_test/test_s3raw.sh - this uses ncdump to investigate some remote
datasets.
This PR also incorporates significantly changed model inference code
(see the superceded PR https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/1259).
1. It centralizes the code that infers the dispatcher.
2. It adds support for byte-range URLs
Other changes:
1. NC_HDF5_finalize was not being properly called by nc_finalize().
2. Fix minor bug in ncgen3.l
3. fix memory leak in nc4info.c
4. add code to walk the .daprc triples and to replace protocol=
fragment tag with a more general mode= tag.
Final Note:
Th inference code is still way too complicated. We need to move
to the validfile() model used by netcdf Java, where each
dispatcher is asked if it can process the file. This decentralizes
the inference code. This will be done after all the major new
dispatchers (PIO, Zarr, etc) have been implemented.
re: issue https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1151
Modify DAP2 and DAP4 code to handle case when _FillValue type is not
same as the parent variable type.
Specifically:
1. Define a parameter [fillmismatch] to allow this mismatch;
default is to disallow.
2. If allowed, forcibly change the type of the _FillValue to match
the parent variable.
3. If allowed Convert the values to match new type
4. Generate a log message
5. if not allowed, then fail
Implementing this required some changes to ncdap_test/dapcvt.c
Also added test cases.
Minor Unrelated Changes:
1. There were a number of warnings about e.g.
assigning a const char* to a char*. Fix these
2. In nccopy.1, replace .NP with .IP "n"
(re PR https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/pull/1144)
3. fix minor error in ncdump/ocprint
re: github issue https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/1111
One of the less common use cases for the in-memory feature is
apparently failing with HDF5-1.10.x. The fix is complicated and
requires significant changes to libhdf5/nc4memcb.c. The current
setup is detailed in the file docs/inmeminternal.dox.
Additionally, it was discovered that the program
nc_test/tst_inmemory.c, which is invoked by
nc_test/run_inmemory.sh, actually was failing because of the
above problem. But the failure is not detected since the script
does not return non-zero value.
Other Changes:
1. Fix nc_test_tst_inmemory to return errors correctly.
2. Make ncdap_tests/findtestserver.c and dap4_tests/findtestserver4.c
be generated from ncdap_test/findtestserver.c.in.
3. Make LOG() print output to stderr instead of stdout to
avoid contaminating e.g. ncdump output.
4. Modify the handling of NC_INMEMORY and NC_DISKLESS flags
to properly handle that NC_DISKLESS => NC_INMEMORY. This
affects a number of code pieces, especially memio.c.
file with @internal. The equivalent can be faked using
the Doxygen ENABLED_SECTIONS mechanism. See docs/testserver.dox
to see how this is done. So I make --enable-internal-docs
also set ENABLED_SECTIONS = INTERNAL and then used it
in docs/testserver.dox to decide if it needs to be included.
in the docs directory.
1. Add a new internal document -- testserver.dox -- to describe
how to set up and maintain the dap test server.
2. It moves the internal documentation (internal.dox, indexing.dox,
and testserver.dox) to later in the documentation table of contents.
3. Cleanup the formatting of the internal documents.
4. Cleanup some minor doxygen issues in other files.
The file docs/indexing.dox tries to provide design
information for the refactoring.
The primary change is to replace all walking of linked
lists with the use of the NCindex data structure.
Ncindex is a combination of a hash table (for name-based
lookup) and a vector (for walking the elements in the index).
Additionally, global vectors are added to NC_HDF5_FILE_INFO_T
to support direct mapping of an e.g. dimid to the NC_DIM_INFO_T
object. These global vectors exist for dimensions, types, and groups
because they have globally unique id numbers.
WARNING:
1. since libsrc4 and libsrchdf4 share code, there are also
changes in libsrchdf4.
2. Any outstanding pull requests that change libsrc4 or libhdf4
are likely to cause conflicts with this code.
3. The original reason for doing this was for performance improvements,
but as noted elsewhere, this may not be significant because
the meta-data read performance apparently is being dominated
by the hdf5 library because we do bulk meta-data reading rather
than lazy reading.
and https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/issues/708
Expand the NC_INMEMORY capabilities to support writing and accessing
the final modified memory.
Three new functions have been added:
nc_open_memio, nc_create_mem, and nc_close_memio.
The following new capabilities were added.
1. nc_open_memio() allows the NC_WRITE mode flag
so a chunk of memory can be passed in and be modified
2. nc_create_mem() allows the NC_INMEMORY flag to be set
to cause the created file to be kept in memory.
3. nc_close_mem() allows the final in-memory contents to be
retrieved at the time the file is closed.
4. A special flag, NC_MEMIO_LOCK, is provided to ensure that
the provided memory will not be freed or reallocated.
Note the following.
1. If nc_open_memio() is called with NC_WRITE, and NC_MEMIO_LOCK is not set,
then the netcdf-c library will take control of the incoming memory.
This means that the original memory block should not be freed
but the block returned by nc_close_mem() must be freed.
2. If nc_open_memio() is called with NC_WRITE, and NC_MEMIO_LOCK is set,
then modifications to the original memory may fail if the space available
is insufficient.
Documentation is provided in the file docs/inmemory.md.
A test case is provided: nc_test/tst_inmemory.c driven by
nc_test/run_inmemory.sh
WARNING: changes were made to the dispatch table for
the close entry. From int (*close)(int) to int (*close)(int,void*).
(I hope) metadata mechanism. This mostly just adds new pieces of
code (e.g. nclistmap) and does some minor fixes.
It should be transparent to everything else.
The next set of changes will be the big step.
2. Fixed plugin building (nc_test4/hdf5plugins)
to be done properly by cmake and automake.
4. Duplicated part of the nc_test4 filter test code
in examples/C
An incomplete and untested set of hooks exist
for OS-X in nc_test4/findplugins.in. They need testing.
2. Factored out the parameter string parsing for ncgen and nccopy
int libdispatch/dfilter.c + include/ncfilter.h
3. Allow a parameter string to use constant types other than
unsigned int. See docs/filters.md for details.
4. Moved the old content of include/netcdf_filter.h into include/netcdf.h
and removed include/netcdf_filter.h as no longer needed.
5. Force the test filter (bzip2) in nc_test4/filter_test to
be built using BUILT_SOURCES.
