<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Hi Ned,<br><br></div>As an alternate to xdfopen I would like to offer a suggestion. If you sdfopen one of the HDF files, then run &quot;q ctlinfo&quot;  you will see most if not all of what you need to make a ctl file that will open the HDF with  the &quot;open&quot; command. You&#39;ll need to template your files. I have found this approach much less frustrating than trying to figure out xdfopen files.<br>
<br></div><div>Mike<br></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 11:16 AM, Vizy, Edward K <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:ned@jsg.utexas.edu" target="_blank">ned@jsg.utexas.edu</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">





<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Hi All,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">I’m trying to open the MERRA 3-hourly MAI3CPASM.5.2.0 data using GrADS opendap.  I want to open multiple days at once to generate time averages, hence I need to create
 and use a control file I create to open all of the hdf files in the MERRA collection that I am interested in using xdfopen.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">I have created the following control file:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">_______________________________________________<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">dset <a href="http://goldsmr3.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/opendap/MERRA/MAI3CPASM.5.2.0/%y4/%m2/MERRA100.prod.assim.inst3_3d_asm_Cp.%y4%m2%d2.hdf" target="_blank">http://goldsmr3.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/opendap/MERRA/MAI3CPASM.5.2.0/%y4/%m2/MERRA100.prod.assim.inst3_3d_asm_Cp.%y4%m2%d2.hdf</a><u></u><u></u></span></b></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">options template<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">TDEF TIME:EOSGRID 248 linear 00Z01JAN1979 3hr<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">_______________________________________________<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">but when I go to execute it in GrADS I get the following error message:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">[MAI3CPASM.5.2.0]$ grads<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) Version 2.0.2<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Copyright (c) 1988-2011 by Brian Doty and the<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Institute for Global Environment and Society (IGES)<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">GrADS comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">See file COPYRIGHT for more information<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Config: v2.0.2 little-endian readline printim grib2 netcdf hdf4-sds hdf5 opendap-grids,stn geotiff shapefile<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Issue &#39;q config&#39; command for more detailed configuration information<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Landscape mode? (&#39;n&#39; for portrait):  y<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">GX Package Initialization: Size = 11 8.5
<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">ga-&gt; xdfopen test.opendap.ctl<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Scanning Descriptor File:  test.opendap.ctl<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">gadsdf: Time dimension TIME:EOSGRID is not an SDF dimension.<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">SDF Descriptor file test.opendap.ctl was not successfully opened &amp; parsed.</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u><u></u></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Having this failure I backtracked and downloaded the MERRA data via FTP to my local machine and created a similar xdf control file to access the data on the local system:<u></u><u></u></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">______________________________________________________<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">dset ^./%y4/%m2/MERRA100.prod.assim.inst3_3d_asm_Cp.%y4%m2%d2.hdf<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">options template<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">TDEF TIME:EOSGRID 248 linear 00Z01JAN1979 3hr<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">______________________________________________________<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">When I run this in GrADS everything works as it should and I can access all the MERRA data.  Am I missing something for opendap that I need to include in the xdf control
 file?  Alternatively, has anyone been able to successfully create a xdf control file to read the 3-hourly data from MERRA via opendap?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Here is my GrADS build info:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Config: v2.0.2 little-endian readline printim grib2 netcdf hdf4-sds hdf5 opendap-grids,stn geotiff shapefile<u></u><u></u></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) Version 2.0.2<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Copyright (c) 1988-2011 by Brian Doty and the<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Institute for Global Environment and Society (IGES)
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">This program is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">See file COPYRIGHT for more information.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Built Thu Nov  8 13:55:26 EST 2012 for x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">This version of GrADS has been configured with the following options:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o Built on a LITTLE ENDIAN machine<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o Athena Widget GUI DISABLED<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o Command line editing ENABLED
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html" target="_blank">http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o printim command for image output ENABLED
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.zlib.net" target="_blank">http://www.zlib.net</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html" target="_blank">http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.libgd.org/Main_Page" target="_blank">http://www.libgd.org/Main_Page</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o GRIB2 interface ENABLED
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.ijg.org" target="_blank">http://www.ijg.org</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams/jasper" target="_blank">http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams/jasper</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/codes/GRIB2" target="_blank">http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/codes/GRIB2</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      g2clib-1.4.0 
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o NetCDF interface ENABLED
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf" target="_blank">http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf</a> 
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      netcdf 4.1.2 of Oct  5 2011 11:54:30 $ 
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o OPeNDAP gridded data interface ENABLED<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o OPeNDAP station data interface ENABLED<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://iges.org/grads/gadoc/supplibs.html" target="_blank">http://iges.org/grads/gadoc/supplibs.html</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      libgadap 2.0 
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o HDF4 and HDF5 interfaces ENABLED
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://hdfgroup.org" target="_blank">http://hdfgroup.org</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      HDF 4.2r3
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      HDF5 1.8.7
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o GeoTIFF and KML/TIFF output ENABLED<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://www.libtiff.org" target="_blank">http://www.libtiff.org</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">      <a href="http://geotiff.osgeo.org" target="_blank">http://geotiff.osgeo.org</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o KML contour output ENABLED<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">  o Shapefile interface ENABLED<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">     
<a href="http://shapelib.maptools.org" target="_blank">http://shapelib.maptools.org</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Many thanks,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Ned
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<div style="border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="border:none;padding:0in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Dr. Edward “Ned” Vizy<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Research Engineer/Scientist Associate V<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Jackson School of Geosciences<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Department of Geological Sciences<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">The University of Texas at Austin<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">1 University Station C1100<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Austin, Texas 78712<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">e-mail:
<a href="mailto:ned@jsg.utexas.edu" target="_blank">ned@jsg.utexas.edu</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">phone: <a href="tel:512-585-1937" value="+15125851937" target="_blank">512-585-1937</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>

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