ASCII questions

[Steve Guimond <guimond@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Ferreters:
   I have two questions:
(1)  In my data, a missing value is denoted by "******".  How can I set
this as the bad value flag?  I have tried numerous versions of 

yes?set var/bad='******' file.dat          but it seems to not like characters

(2)  How can I ouput my data to an ascii file with the same format (one
column) as the way it was originally without having the messy netCDF
heading at the top of the file?

thanks.

Stephen R. Guimond
Graduate Research Assistant
Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies