NOAA-PMEL / Ferret

The Ferret program from NOAA/PMEL
https://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/
The Unlicense
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Open (some) invalid DSG datasets anyway, issuing a NOTE and open as Non-DSG #1980

Closed AnsleyManke closed 4 years ago

AnsleyManke commented 4 years ago

For some mostly-valid datasets of other kinds we already do this: if a file has coordinates that repeat or are out-of-order for instance, we open it with a warning to let users explore what's up with the data.

For datasets with a global FeatureType attribute but without all the attributes and structhre that would qualify them to be a DSG dataset, issue notes saying what the problems were and open it as if we had said "USE/FEATURE=NONE dataset_name.nc". Then the user can see what's happening in the file and perhaps fix it.

A use of this is that for files saved from ERDDAP as file type NCCFMA (Multidimensional Array) file e.g. alamo floats from https://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/alamo/erddap/tabledap/arctic_heat_alamo_profiles_9234.html

the resulting dataset has a featureType = "Profile" attribute but it is not a DSG file. The dimensions are organized such that they represent a 2-D depth-time field, which is correct. (The data represents a grid only in the case if the underlying collection of data all share the same depths! so this needs an FAQ.) So with this change Ferret will open it and say,

           *** NOTE: Dataset has FeatureType attribute: Profile
           *** NOTE: But is not initialized as a DSG File: DSG ragged array: observation variables must be 1-D PRES
           *** NOTE: Initializing the file as a non-DSG dataset

and "SHOW DATA" will show the 2-D variables.

AnsleyManke commented 4 years ago

This had mostly been done previously, now complete