netcdf MC file and memory problem

[Brent A McDaniel <gte328r@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi again.  Sorry to be sending so much to the list but I'm having a few
problems that are preventing me from going foward and I can't find the
answers in the documentation.  

First problem: I'm trying to open a string of ncep reanalysis data
files.  air.1957.nc air.1958.nc etc.  I read through the manual and some
of the files in /doc and pieced one together (there were still lots of
things I was unsure of.  I try to open it and I get the error:
yes? set data_set "/data/ncep/test.des"
 **TMAP ERR: Error in namelist record
             Error in: FORMAT_RECORD; or file not descriptor file
             Data set: /data/ncep/test.des

I also tried opening the existing sample one in fer_dsets/descr and it
returned the same error as did the sample one in the manual.

Does anyone have a descriptor file for working with reanalysis data?
Or have an idea what I'm doing wrong?

Problem 2:

In the FAQ it's mentioned that you can concat time series together to form
one long axis.  Well, I decided to try this as I'm stuck on the
descriptor.
here's an example:

yes? use "/data/ncep/air.1961.nc"
yes? save/file=test.nc air
 **ERROR: insufficient memory: 65226960 words were requested.
 *** NOTE: You can use SET MEMORY/SIZE=xxx to increase memory.
 *** NOTE: The "Memory use" section of the FERRET Users Guide has further
tips.
yes? show memory
 Current size of FERRET memory cache: 3.2 MegaWords  (1 word = 4 bytes)
yes? set memory/size=100
 Cached data cleared from memory
yes? show memory
 Current size of FERRET memory cache: 100 MegaWords  (1 word = 4 bytes)
yes? save/file=test.nc air
 **ERROR: insufficient memory: 65226960 words were requested.
 *** NOTE: You can use SET MEMORY/SIZE=xxx to increase memory.
 *** NOTE: The "Memory use" section of the FERRET Users Guide has further
tips.


Any idea why this isn't working?  Some back ground info.  air.1961.nc is
~131mb.  The computer that I'm running this on has 512mb physical ram and
swap 128mb.  Looking at the memory states before I tried this, I had
~470mb free.  The system is an p3 800mhz running linux.

Thanks for all the help.

Frustratedly your,

Brent




Brent A. McDaniel

Dept of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Ga.  USA