PROGRAM compare_states

Overview

Utility program to compare fields in two NetCDF files and print out the min and max values from each file and the min and max of the differences between the two fields. The default is to compare all numeric variables in the files, but specific variables can be specified in the namelist or in a separate file. The two input NetCDF filenames are read from the console or can be echo’d into the standard input of the program.

If you want to restrict the comparison to only specific variables in the files, specify the list of field names to compare either in the namelist, or put a list of fields, one per line, in a text file and specify the name of the text file. Only data arrays can be compared, not character arrays, strings, or attribute values.

Namelist interface &compare_states_nml must be read from file input.nml.

Namelist

This namelist is read from the file input.nml. Namelists start with an ampersand ‘&’ and terminate with a slash ‘/’. Character strings that contain a ‘/’ must be enclosed in quotes to prevent them from prematurely terminating the namelist.

&compare_states_nml
   do_all_numeric_fields   = .true.
   fieldnames              = ''
   fieldlist_file          = ''
   fail_on_missing_field   = .true.
   only_report_differences = .true.
   debug                   = .false.
  /

Item	Type	Description
do_all_numeric_fields	logical	If .true., all integer, float, and double variables in the NetCDF files will have their values compared. If .false. the list of specific variables to be compared must be given either directly in the namelist in the fieldnames item, or else the field names must be listed in an ASCII file, one name per line, and the name of that file is specified in fieldlist_file.
fieldnames	character list	One or more names of arrays in the NetCDF files to be compared. Only read if do_all_numeric_fields is .false.
fieldlist_file	character	Name of a text file containing the fieldnames, one per line. It is an error to specify both the fieldnames namelist item and this one. Only read if do_all_numeric_fields is .false.
fail_on_missing_field	logical	If .true. and any one of the field names is not found in both files it is a fatal error. If .false. a message is printed about the missing field but execution continues.
only_report_differences	logical	If .true. only print the name of the variable being tested; skip printing the variable value min and max if the two files are identical. If .false. print more details about both variables which differ and varibles with the same values.
debug	logical	If true print out debugging info.

Modules used

types_mod
utilities_mod
parse_args_mod

Files

• two NetCDF input files

• compare_states.nml

• field names text file (optionally)

References

• none