Strategy for learning to use NCL
This module describes basic strategies for learning NCL. Since
different people have different optimal learning styles, several
techniques are presented. You may want to mix and match to suit your
own style.
If you are a person who prefers to jump right in to a new language,
the best starting point may be the
NCL scientific tutorial. If, on the
other hand, you prefer to read more about the underlying principles of
the language, then you may prefer to start by reading the User Guide.
Read through the modules listed in the
NCL Command Language module.
As you read various modules, you may want to run NCL interactively
to test various features; you can do this by using the NCL
scientific tutorial concurrently with the User Guide. See the
NCL user environment module
for information about how to set up your environment and run NCL.
Use the "Roadmap" button on the control panel to get
an idea of where NCL fits into the big picture. Use the "Contents"
button on the control panel to see a listing of the contents of the
entire User Guide, and where NCL fits in.
For a more structured approach, and for details, you need to
study the
NCL Reference Manual.
No matter what approach you choose, it will be valuable for you to
see examples of running NCL scripts. A starting point is to look at
the NCL codes that are contained in the NCL scientific tutorial. The
tutorial does not cover all of NCL's functionality, so you may also
want to run some of the many NCL examples contained in the Quick Start
Guide and available via the ng4ex command. These examples vary from
simple Basic examples to more complex overlay and animation examples.
Quick Start Guide examples begin at the
Pick a utility
module. The examples available via the ncargex command can be accessed
with the following useful calls:
man ng4ex
Gives details of how to use the ng4ex command.
ng4ex -list -A
Lists the names of all available ng4ex examples.
ng4ex -list -NCL
Lists the names of all available ng4ex NCL examples.
ng4ex -NCL
Copies all ng4ex NCL scripts and associated data files
into the local directory and runs them, creating output graphics.
ng4ex -n ex00n
Copies the NCL script and associated data files (if any) into the
local directory, but does not run it. ex00n must be the
name of a legal ng4ex example.
ng4ex ex00n
Copies the NCL script and associated data files (if any) into the
local directory and runs it. ex00n must be the name of a
legal ng4ex example.
The two primary uses of NCL are for interactive manipulation of data
files and interfacing with the HLUs. The most common format for data
file input and output is netCDF. If you are going to work with netCDF
datasets, you can learn about it from the
UNIDATA netCDF pages. If you want to produce graphics via
the NCAR Graphics HLUs, you will want to look at the modules listed
in the
High Level Utilities overview.
User Guide Control Panel
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$Revision: 1.10 $ $Date: 1998/06/15 22:08:55 $