[OpenMadrigal-developers] Re: [MidasW-developers] New information in IFAM, CMST and Madrigal

[William Rideout]

John Holt wrote:
> Putting record type information in header records seems reasonable. It
> does thrust the header record into a much more prominent role than
> previously, but that may be a good thing. Are you thinking of using
> just one header record, as we do now, or multiple header records, as
> some other radars have done? For example there could be a header record
> before each experiment if the file contains more than one experiment,
> or before each cycle. However one does it, there will be many CCYCLE
> lines - on the order of 200-300 in a 24-hour experiment.

According to the Cedar format, a header record is meant to describe a subset of 
the records, and should be before or after the records it describes.  So I have 
no problem with the Cedar approach of inserting header records into the middle 
of the Cedar file.  Given the name "header", I would think it would be more 
logical to put them before the records they describe.

 From the Madrigal point of view, here's a simple way then to get (for example) 
all azimuth scan records for plotting:

1.  Pass once through the file, getting all header records (so where or how many 
header records there are is irrelevant).
2.  Parse the result for azimuth scan ranges.
3.  Call isprint (or the underlying method createMaddata if you're working in C) 
to get all desired data with RECNO as a filter, and the ranges as an argument, 
since any number of ranges are allowed in a filter.

> 
> The flexiblity will be important when we begin to deal with the sorts
> of things the AMISR will be able to do. I think it would be a good idea
> for us to have a small meeting of Madrigal people in Santa Fe to
> discuss some of these issues. 

Sounds good to me.  The more we standardize, the more I can make Madrigal do for 
everyone.

Bill

-- 
Bill Rideout
MIT Haystack Observatory
Email: brideout at haystack.mit.edu
Phone: 781 981-5624