/--------------------------/ / CDF V3.2 Release Notes / /--------------------------/ 1. Compatibility with CDF 3.1, 2.7.2 and Earlier Versions CDF V3.2 is backward compatible with the previous versions of CDF, and it can read CDF files that were created with CDF 3.1, or CDF 2.7.2 or earlier. If a file was created with CDF 2.7 and read and modified by CDF 3.2, the resultant file will be saved in the CDF 2.7 format, not CDF 3.2. The same principle applies to files that were created with CDF 2.5 and 2.6. CDF files that are created from scratch with CDF V3.2 are compatible with all CDF 3.*, but not compatible (due to a 64-bit file offsets used since CDF 3.0 versions) with CDF 2.7.2 or earlier, and an attempt to read CDF 3.* files from CDF 2.7.2 or earlier will produce an error. Users of CDF 3.1 or later versions will be able to create CDF files that can be read by CDF 2.7.2 or earlier by using the CDFsetFileBackward function (in C) or CDF_set_FileBackward subroutine (in Fortran), or using the CDF_FILEBACKWARD environment variable on Unix or PC, or CDF$FILEBACKWARD on OpenVMS. See Section 4.18 of the CDF C Reference Manual and the CDF Fortran Reference Manual for details on how to create CDF 2.7-compatible files. The command-line version of the CDFedit and CDFexport utility programs can now create CDF files that can be read by CDF 2.7.2 or earlier. The routine now returns the data type of 64-bit off_t (or __int64 on Windows) for the compressed file size (cSize) and uncompressed file size (uSize) parameters in V3.2 while they used to return as 32-bit long integer in V2.5, 2.6 or 2.7. Thus, if you have a legacy application that calls the routine, you MUST change the data type of the cSize and uSize parameters to off_t (or __int64 on Windows) from long to access files that were created with V3.2. If the file accessed was created with V2.5, V2.6, or V2.7, you should always use 'long' instead of off_t to get the correct results. Using off_t for non-3.0 files in V3.2 may or may not return the correct results depending upon what operating system it is executed under. Users of CDF 3.2 will be able to create CDF files with checksum by using the CDFsetChecksum function (in C) or CDF_set_Checksum subroutine (in Fortran), or using the CDF_CHECKSUM environment variable on Unix or PC, or CDF$CHECKSUM on OpenVMS. See Section 4.19 of the CDF C Reference Manual and the CDF Fortran Reference Manual for details on how to operate the checksum feature from the library. Note: In the following instructions, files identified with cdf32_x... represent files of cdf32_1..., cdf32_2..., etc, whichever the most recent release version refers to. 2. Changes The following features have been added to CDF 3.2: * Added the checksum feature as a mechanism for CDF file integrity check. * The cdfedit and cdfconvert tools are modified to allow users to enable or disable the checksum feature. * Performance improvement for opening a CDF file in read-only mode (see the note below) * Miscellaneous bug fixes. NOTE: Since all the metadata is read in when READONLY is turned on, performance is only improved to the degree that the metadata is accessed by the client. If only a small portion of the metadata is requested by the client, there will little, if any improvement. There may be cases where performance actually is slightly degraded if READONLY is turned on, there is a large amount of metadata, and very little metadata is actually requested. 3. How to Obtain the CDF 3.2 Software For OpenVMS systems via anonymous FTP: a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/cdf32_x/vms b. Download README_VMS.txt, cdf32-dist.bck and RESET_BACKUP_SAVESET_FILE_ATTRIBUTES.COM c. Follow the instructions in README_VMS.txt. The CDF Java APIs and tools are not fully tested for the VMS/OpenVMS operating system, and they'll be made available at the place where the new CDF 3.2 library is located once fully tested. The new CDF 3.2 library is available now. For Linux/UNIX (including Windows running Cygwin or MingW) systems a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/latest-release/unix b. Browse the AAREADME.txt file first and determine which tar file suits your needs. There are 5 gzipped tar files (i.e. cdf32_x-dist-all.tar.gz, cdf32_x-dist-cdf.tar.gz, cdf32_x-dist-java.tar.gz, cdf32_x-dist-java_src.tar.gz, and PerlCDF32_x.tar.gz). cdf-32_x-dist-all.tar.gz contains everything CDF offers except the Perl-CDF APIs. This file is recommended for both CDF novice and expert users. The two jar files, cdfjava.jar and cdfml.jar, are for people who only want to install or upgrade Java-CDF or CDFML portion of the CDF distribution. /***************************/ /* NOTE for Ubuntu users */ /***************************/ By default, the Ubuntu operating system doesn't come with ncurses.h that is needed to build the command-line based interactive CDF tools (cdfedit and cdfexport). If you don't need these two tools (other CDF tools will still be built without ncurses.h) or don't have ncurses.h, you need to disable the "CURSES" option to "no". OS=linux ENV=gnu all CURSES=no You can install the ncurses header files including ncurses.h by installing the ncurses development package with the following command: apt-get install libncurses5-dev For Macintosh OS X Version 10.2 or later a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/latest-release/macOSx b. Download the cdf32_x-setup_universal_binary.tar.gz file. Upon completion of the download, the Web browser will automatically uncompress the file and initiate the installation process. For 32-bit or 64-bit Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/latest-release/w32 b. Download the CDF32_x_SETUP_2005-STUDIO.EXE file. Double-click the downloaded file for installation. The CDF documents are available at ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/doc/cdf32 in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The documentation set consists of the followings: cdf32ug.pdf (CDF User's Guide) cdf32crm.pdf (CDF C Reference Manual) cdf32frm.pdf (CDF Fortran Reference Manual) cdf32prm.pdf (CDF Perl Reference Manual) cdf32jrm.pdf (CDF Java Reference Manual) cdf32ifd.pdf (CDF Internal Format Description) Documentation for the CDF Java APIs is also available at http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdfjava_doc We have a user support office for CDF that you can contact when you need an assistance. For requests, please send emails to: Internet -- cdfsupport@listserv.gsfc.nasa.gov Please let us know (via an email to CDFSUPPORT) if you get the distribution. We would like to know who has the distribution so we know who to contact when updates are available. CDFsupport