I/O Runtime Wishlist

[AaronDonahue]

There have been a number of feature requests regarding runtime I/O. This issue is meant to collect them all into one place so we can manage them.

• [ ] Check if list of output variables is valid - see #2246
• [ ] Compare ATM dt with the frequency of output. This is an issue when the output frequency may be smaller than dt.
• [ ] Make sure no two output streams will share a name (i.e. overwriting each other). This is a pretty edge case, so not high priority.
• [ ] Make sure all required keys are present. i.e. filename_prefix, grid, fields, frequency, etc.

[bartgol]

Two thoughts

• The second box is done, if we agree that dt_out>dt_atm should not be allowed.
• Do you want these checks done at runtime or buildnml time? I don't think the 1st check can be done at buildnml time, since it requires knowledge of each atm proc implementation (buildnml does not know what each atm proc produces). And we already have a check at runtime: IO will throw if the field is not found.