[OpenMadrigal-users] (no subject)

[John Holt]

A question has arisen concerning the meaning of "default" file in
the Madrigal database. Perhaps the following will clarify this.

Multiple default files are allowed, as described (perhaps not as
clearly as could be hoped) by the documentation. Each file has a kindat
which tags the data analysis algorithm used to produce the file. In
many experiments, such as 9/21/1998, there are files produced by
different analysis programs. In the case at hand, these are INSCAL and
EFWINDS. In each case there is a default file, which is the one most
users will want. There may also be history files, which are no longer
of use to users, but can be valuable for those of us who are directly
involved in the analysis. These are normally not displayed. Finally,
there may be variant files. These are files produced by the analysis
program run with different options from those used when the default
file was produced. An example would be inscal run with a non-standard
lag-profile summation rule. In all cases, there should be a header
record which describes these differences in detail. I am working on
this now. The header records for 9/21/98 do exist (see the experiment
directory), but only in Steve's undocumented binary format. So, no one
can read them. I need to decode these and add them to the beginning of
the two files. Then, users can view them as I described yesterday in my
message to openmadrigal-users. As soon as I have the catalog/header
record situation under control, I will write an explanatory message to
openmadrigal-users.

John