1-D data in LAS

[Dave Brown <dbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jon et al,

The LAS has problems with data that has either an X or
Y axis but not both. Is this intentional? Right now addXML.pl accepts 
this sort of data, but genLAS.pl does not. Since the LAS interface is set
up to handle line plots, and if given a chance, Ferret handles this data
without any trouble, I wonder if it's a bug. If so it is quite easily
fixed:

In xml/perl/LASServlet.pm:

1400c1400
<           if ($hasX && $hasY){
---
>           if ($hasX || $hasY){

And in server/Ferret.pl:

678,682c678,684
<       my $units = $xaxis->getAttribute("units");
<       if ($units && $units =~ /degree/i && $xaxis->getSize > 1){
<         my $comm = "set axis/modulo `" . $var .
<           "[d=" . $dexpr . "],return=xaxis`";
<         $self->command($comm);
---
>       if ($xaxis) {
>            my $units = $xaxis->getAttribute("units");
>            if ($units && $units =~ /degree/i && $xaxis->getSize > 1){
>            my $comm = "set axis/modulo `" . $var .
>              "[d=" . $dexpr . "],return=xaxis`";
>            $self->command($comm);
>         }

If actually the data is always supposed to have both an X and Y axis,
then shouldn't addXml.pl be set up to reject variables that have only
one of them? 

This question arises for me not because I'm terribly interested in being
able to display or make available the 1D variables. In the CCSM datasets I
am trying to handle, these 1D variables more akin to metadata than real
data. Examples are (as extracted from ncdump):

        int nlon(lat) ;
                nlon:long_name = "number of longitudes" ;
        int wnummax(lat) ;
                wnummax:long_name = "cutoff Fourier wavenumber" ;
        double gw(lat) ;
                gw:long_name = "gauss weights" ;

This data is generally constant over the whole project and therefore
not generally interesting to the users. My real interest is in making the
addXml/genXml sequence truly automatic. This requires consistency
between the different phases of the data registration process.
 -dave