fbinread

This function is used to read a binary file that has been written using an UNFORMATTED FORTRAN write and contains only one record. The fbinrecread function should be used for files with multiple records and fbindirread should be used for files written with Fortran direct access files.

Synopsis

	function fbinread( 
		filepath[1]:string,
		dimensions[*]:integer,
		datatype[1]:string
	)

Arguments

filepath: Path needed to locate binary file.
dimensions: An array specifying the dimensions of the data to be read or the value -1.
datatype: A string representing the type of the data being read.

Description

The fbinread function is used to read binary data. To guarantee this function will work, the data must have been written on a machine with the same architecture and Fortran compiler as the machine on which they are being read. If the specified dimensions do not define a size equal to the total file data size, an error message is generated. Note that there is no way for NCL to determine if the type of file and the datatype parameter represent the same type. If the value of -1 is used for dimensions then all of the values of the Fortran record are read and the output is a single dimension variable with a dimension size equal to the number of elements of the record.

The purpose of this function is to "skip" over control words often written into Fortran records. This function, technically, is limited to only reading one Fortran record. However, if the size of the control words are equal to the data type being read and the file contains only a single data type, there are techniques for reading multiple record Fortran binary files. (See Binary data input in the NCL user guide tutorial)

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$Revision: 1.16 $ $Date: 1998/11/11 23:32:16 $