[ferret_users] appending to file: history crash & time bounds

[Hella Riede <hella.riede@xxxxxxx>]

Dear ferreters,

in order to track the history of datasets, I create very long history 
lines. When I try to add a variable to such a dataset, ferret crashes 
and exits with the message " **ERROR Ferret crash; signal = 11". It took 
me some time to figure out that the crash is due to the long history 
attribute. I currently use version 6.70. Up to at least version 6.40, 
there was a warning issued:
 *** NOTE: CDF attribute history is too long
 *** NOTE: no text could be appended
This is now seems not to be issued anymore.


After cutting the history line, I get the following error:
"NetCDF: Variable not found (OPeNDAP/netCDF Error code -49)
 timep_bnds not found. Attempt to append irregular coordinates to 
NetCDF axis which has no bounds attribute. Write data originally with 
the /BOUNDS qualifier."
I found some information on that in the release notes to version 6.3. 
What I do not understand is that I just would like to add a variable, 
not additional time steps, to the file.

! I defined a variable
! d=1: test_all_short.nc
! d=2: test.nc
yes? let/d=1 flight = flight[d=2,gt=slon[d=1]@ASN]
! then tried to append it
yes? save/append/file=test_all_short.nc flight[d=1]

The to-be-appended variable flight has the same grid as any variable in d=1:
yes? sh grid flight
    GRID GMH1
 name       axis              # pts   start                end
 normal    X
 normal    Y
 normal    Z
 TIMEP     TIME               607 i   28-APR-2006 11:57    28-APR-2006 
13:40
yes? sh grid slon
    GRID GMH1
 name       axis              # pts   start                end
 normal    X
 normal    Y
 normal    Z
 TIMEP     TIME               607 i   28-APR-2006 11:57    28-APR-2006 
13:40

In my opinion there is no need for bounds when I really do not want to 
extend the file in time.

Any clarification on this is very welcome, thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Hella

--

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 Hella Riede  (Dipl.Chem.)
 Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
 Dept. of Atmospheric Chemistry
 Becherweg 27
 55128 Mainz
 Germany

 email: hella.riede@xxxxxxx
 phone: +49-6131-305437

 www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~riede
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