UV-CDAT Utilities - CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

User Contributed Packages

The packages described below are contributions submitted by users. They are provided “as-is” and may not be maintained in the future - unless they are extensively used and the user community considers them critical.

Reading ASCII text files (package asciidata )

Package asciidata reads data from ASCII text files.

Reads text files written by such programs as spreadsheets, in which data has been written as comma, tab, or space-separated numbers with a header line that names the fields. Using the functions in asciidata, you can convert these columns into Numerical arrays, with control over the type/precision of these arrays.

Example:

>>> import asciidata
>>> time, pressure = asciidata.comma_separated(`myfile.txt')

For documentation type:

% pydoc -w asciidata

Scientific Python also contains a subpackage IO that contains other useful facilities of this type. In particular there is a useful package for reading Fortran-like formatted output.

Reading binary data (package binaryio )

Read and write Fortran unformatted i/o files.

These are the files that you read and write in Fortran with statements like read(7) or write(7). Such files have an unspecified format and are platform and compiler dependent. They are NOT portable. Contrary to popular opinion, they are NOT standard. The standard only specifies their existence and behavior, not the details of their implementation, and since there is no one obvious implementation, Fortran compilers do vary. We suggest writing netcdf files instead, using the facilities in cdms.

For documentation type:

% pydoc -w binaryio.

A similar package is in Scientific Python.

Example:

>>> import binaryio
>>> iunit = binaryio.bincreate('filename')
>>> binaryio.binwrite(iunit, some_array)
#(up to 4 dimensions)
>>> binaryio.binclose(iunit)
>>> iunit = binaryio.binopen('filename')
>>> y = binaryio.binread(iunit, n, ...)
# (1-4 dimensions)
>>> binaryio.binclose(iunit)

Note that reads and writes must be paired exactly. Errors will cause a Fortran STOP that cannot be recovered from. You must know (or have written earlier in the file) the sizes of each array. All data is stored as 32-bit floats.

Explicit Orthonormal Functions (package eof)

Calculates Explicit Orthonormal Functions of either one variable or two variables jointly.

Having selected some data, the key call is to create an instance of eof.Eof giving one or two arguments. In this example, a portion of the variable u is analyzed. After the result is returned, it is an object with attributes containing such things as the principal components and the percent of variance explained. Optional arguments are available for controlling the subtraction of the mean from the data, the weighting by latitude, and the number of components to compute.

This routine is computationally efficient, solving the problem in either the normal space or the dual space in order to minimize computations. Nonetheless, it is possible that this routine will require substantial time and space if used on a large amount of data. This cost is determined by the smaller of the number of time points and the total number of space points.

For documentation type:

% pydoc -w eof.Eof

Example:

>>> import cdms, vcs
>>> from eof import Eof
>>> f=cdms.open('/home/dubois/clt.nc')
>>> u = f('u', latitude=(-20,40), longitude=(60, 120))
>>> result = Eof(u)
>>> principal_components = result.principal_components
>>> print "Percent explained", result.percent_explained
>>> x=vcs.init()
>>> print len(principal_components)
>>> for y in principal_components:
>>> x.isofill(y)
>>> x.clear()
>>> u1 = v.subRegion(latitude=(amr[0], \
amr[1], 'cc'), longitude=(amr[2], \
amr[3],'cc'), order='xyt')
>>> result2 = Eof(u, number_of_components=4,\
mean_choice=12)
>>> print "Percent explained", result.percent_explained
Computing L-moments (package lmoments)

An interface to an L-moments library by J. R. M. Hosking.

This package is an interface to a Fortran library. The calling sequence from Python differs from the Fortran convention. In general, output and temporary arguments are not supplied in making the Python call, and output arguments are returned as values of the function.

For documentation type:

% pydoc -w lmoments

to see list of functions.

% pydoc -w lmoments.pelexp

or other function name, for the particular. See also documentation for Pyfort for further details on argument conventions. If built from source, a file flmoments.txt appears which gives the Python calling sequences.

Regridding using package regridpack

Interface to regridpack

For documentation type:

% pydoc -w adamsregrid

This package contains a Python interface to the subroutine library regridpack.

See the documentation. See also documentation for Pyfort for further details on argument conventions.

Using Spherepack (package sphere)

Interface to Spherepack. This package contains a Python interface to the subroutine library Spherepack.

For documentation type:

% pydoc -w sphere

to see list of functions.

See the documentation. See also documentation for Pyfort for further details on argument conventions.

Computes variance estimate taking auto-correlation into account.

Example:

import reg_arl from trends
rneff, result, res, cxx, rxx = reg_arl (lag, x, y)
integer lag Max lag for autocorrelations.
real x(n1) Independent variable
real y(n1) Dependent variable
real, intent(out):: rneff !Effective sample size
real, intent(out):: result(31) !Array of linear regression results
real, intent(out):: res(n1) !Residuals from linear regression
real, intent(out):: cxx(1 + lag) !Autocovariance function
real, intent(out):: rxx(1 + lag) !Autocorrelation function
Reading data from an Oort file (package ort)

Read data from an Oort file.

Module ort contains one Fortran function, read1f:

Calling sequence:

>>> import ort
>>> lon, lat, data, nr = ort.read1f(filename, maxsta,\ nvarbs, nlevels)

Input:

character*(*) filename ! name of the file to be read
! max number of stations (soundings) possible
integer maxsta
! number of variables and P-levels in each sounding
integer nvarbs, nlevels

Output:

! longitudes / latitudes of the stations
real, intent(out):: lon(maxsta), lat(maxsta)
! sounding data
real , intent(out):: data(nvarbs, nlevels, maxsta)
! actual number of stations with data
integer , intent(out):: nr
A grads like interface (package grads)

The grads module supplies an interface to cdms that will be familiar to users of GrADS.

See the UV-CDAT website for documentation.

Interface to the ngmath library. (package ngmath)

The ngmath library is a collection of interpolators and approximators for one-dimensional, two-dimensional and three-dimensional data. The packages, which were obtained from NCAR, are:

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