[ferret_users] Announcing the official release of Ferret v6.7

[Ansley Manke <ansley.b.manke@xxxxxxxx>]

* * * Announcing the official release of Ferret version 6.7 * * *

This Ferret release includes executables for Linux 32-bit and 64-bit linked with NetCDF-4.1.2 libraries.  The release notes are not yet on the Ferret web pages. They are included below and will be posted shortly to the Ferret documentation pages.

To install Ferret, follow the instructions on the Downloads pages of the Ferret web site
http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/downloads


     Ansley Manke, Steve Hankin, Karl Smith


Ferret v6.7 Release Notes:

1. Ferret v6.7 is Linked with NetCDF4.1.2. See the documentation and release notes for this library at http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/ .
   
   • (A caveat: If you write netCDF-4 formatted files with netCDF4.1.2 and if your files use hdf capabilities such as compression and chunking, they may not be compatible with  software linked with previous versions of the netCDF libraries  such as ncdump or nco utilities or previous versions of Ferret. By default Ferret does not use compression or chunking when it writes netCDF files.)
     
     
2. The release includes executables for linux RedHat 5, 32-bit and 64-bit; and one built under 64-bit linux RedHat 6, which should run on many of the other, free linux operating systems.  Using compatibility libraries and installing the RedHat 5 executables will work as well.  We have made an effort to be sure that even though the executables require shared-object libraries that are be installed on your operating system, the problems with incompatible versions of libraries that we've had in recent releases will not occur.  We plan to offer 32-bit executables for RedHat 6 as well, and will make an announcement when that is ready.
   
   
3. The message Ferret issues when it doesn't have enough memory is changed so that it reports the number of Mwords requested.  This simplifies the memory setting you need to make:  Instead of
   

      **ERROR: request exceeds memory setting: 27216000 words were requested.

   You will now see:
   

      **ERROR: request exceeds memory setting: 28 Mwords were requested.
   

4. There are upgrades to the xml files that Ferret writes for internal use by LAS and Ferret v6.7 will be required for the next LAS release.
   
   
5. New qualifier SET DATA/BROWSE opens a ThreddsBrowser window for selecting a data set to analyze. See the ThreddsBrowser documentation in the Users Guide.  If you have Java installed, the Ferret install script will complete the installation of the ThreddsBrowser capability.
   
   
6. The Ferret install script Finstall now runs under bash and csh. (The .csh-specific script is still available as Finstall.csh)
   
   
7. Ferret now enforces CF- compliance more strongly: See the conventions document at http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions/latest-cf-conventions-document-1.  These are the changes to Ferret:
   
   • For determining the direction of coordinate axes, Ferret previously used clues such as the axis name to assign a direction. It no longer does this.  Now it uses the axis attribute, the coordinate_axis attribute, and the units attribute if it can be used to unambiguously determine the axis direction according to CF and Udunits standards (e.g. the recognized variations on degrees_east, and degrees_north for X and Y; pressure units or positive down or up indicating Z,  time units for T). In addition, Ferret checks the standard_name attribute for coordinate axes. These include standard_names longitude, latitude, height, altitude, depth, and time; and the various names for sigma-coordinates. If an axis has none of these direction indicators, it is assigned a direction. For more on standard names and the table of recognized names see http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-standard-names
   • Dimensions are given a consistent direction for all grids in a dataset. Previously dimensions that have no coordinate variable and coordinate variables with no defined direction might take different directions in different grids.
   • The calendar attribute is written to all time axes that are defined in terms of a calendar. Previously if the axis used the default Gregorian calendar, the calendar attribute was not listed.
     
     
8. A return status is set when Ferret exits.  For normal exit, the status is zero. When running in -script mode, and if an error condition is detected, then Ferret will issue the error message (e.g. could not open dataset), and returns with a status of 1.
   
   
9. The default translator arguments for Fprint to translate metafiles to postscript files are now set for color postscript. Previously they had been set for black-and-white postscript.
   
   
10. In NetCDF datasets the units for a time axis may now express the time origin using a T between the date and time, for instance:
        units="hours since 2011-03-08T12:00:00Z"
    
    in addition to the form which Ferret has always recognized using a space between the date and time,
        units="hours since 2011-03-08 12:00:00 "
    
    The form with T between date and time is allowed by UDUNITS and the CF standard, and it is the format shown by the ISO1861 standard for date and time representations. http://en.wikipedia.or
    /wiki/ISO_8601#Combined_date_and_time_representations.
    
    
    
11. Documentation update: Symbols are defined on any plot command, containing the movable-label number for all of the movable labels  are automatically defined for the plot. These were available in previous releases but were undocumented. They are:
    

    LABNUM_X	plot commands	label number for X location at upper left, when X axis is normal to the plot
    LABNUM_Y	plot commands	label number for Y location at upper left, when Y axis is normal to the plot
    LABNUM_Z	plot commands	label number for Z location at upper left, when Z axis is normal to the plot
    LABNUM_T	plot commands	label number for T location at upper left, when T axis is normal to the plot
    LABNUM_DSET	plot commands	label number for the dataset label at upper right
    LABNUM_CALEND	plot commands	label number for non-standard calendar time axes, at the upper left
    LABNUM_YEAR	plot commands	label number, year label at upper left, on month or day time series plots
    LABNUM_DATITL	plot commands	label number, dataset title at upper right
    LABNUM_DODS	plot commands	label number, dataset URL at upper right
    LABNUM_ASPECT	plot commands	label number, label for VECTOR/ASPECT at upper left
    LABNUM_OFFSET	plot commands	label number, label for staggered vectors at upper left

    
    
    
12. A bug is fixed, when computing open-ended color levels, which caused bad results when the data field had all-negative values.
    
    
13. A bug is fixed, when making a FILL/LINE or SHADE/LINE call with centered levels, /LEV=c, after a previous color fill plot.  The levels on the second plot were previously set incorrectly.
    
    
14. A bug is fixed using IF on lists of strings.  Previously a sequence like this caused Ferret to crash:

yes? let a = {"x","y"}
yes? let b = IF a EQ "x" THEN "z" ELSE a
yes? list b
            VARIABLE : IF A EQ "x" THEN "z" ELSE A
             SUBSET   : 2 points (X)
 1   / 1:"z"
 2   / 2:"y"

yes? let strings = {"a","b"}
yes? list IF strings EQ "a" THEN "" ELSE strings
             VARIABLE : IF STRINGS EQ "a" THEN "" ELSE STRINGS
             SUBSET   : 2 points (X)
 1   / 1:"" 
 2   / 2:"b"