[petsc-dev] pnetcdf is a big problem

[Blaise A Bourdin]

There are two ways to write parallel netcdf files:

Use netcdf-4 (hdf5 based) files
Use pnetcdf and old-style netcdf files.

Perhaps the best would be to compile netcdf with pnetcdf support only if petsc is configured with exodusii? I can send a patch this afternoon.
Greg Sjaardema, the exodus maintainer, has been very responsive, I will try to iron out the last exodus / netcdf-4 bugs, but it sure would be noce to be able to read / write old style files too…

Blaise



> On Dec 19, 2017, at 5:32 PM, Smith, Barry F. <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Dec 19, 2017, at 5:30 PM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Does ExodusII write pnetcdf?  It's a different interface from (parallel)
>> NetCDF4.
> 
>   Shudder!
> 
>> 
>> Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>> Blaise really wants to write in parallel. It would be better to use HDF5,
>>> but evidently
>>> it is broken in ExodusII. Thats what we get for using something from
>>> Sandia. They
>>> finally have their revenge.
>>> 
>>>  Matt
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Smith, Barry F. <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Do you really need to use pnetcdf? No one uses it and what usefulness
>>>> does it really provide, best to be avoided.
>>>> 
>>>>  Barry
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 19, 2017, at 1:12 PM, Satish Balay <balay at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> parallel-netcdf-1.9.0.pre1/INSTALL has:
>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 4. Reporting Installation or Usage Problems
>>>>> ===========================================
>>>>> 
>>>>> Please send an email to parallel-netcdf at mcs.anl.gov
>>>>> 
>>>>> <<<<<<
>>>>> 
>>>>> We'll have to send in these bug reports.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Satish
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, 19 Dec 2017, Matthew Knepley wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> The configure is broken, perhaps beyond fixing. I need to give
>>>> --with-mpi
>>>>>> to get anything
>>>>>> to work because the way it checks for MPI is screwed up. I will see if I
>>>>>> can throw away all its idiotic configure stuff in favor of just telling
>>>> it
>>>>>> everything, but I am not eager to depend on something so rickety.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
>>> experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their
>>> experiments lead.
>>> -- Norbert Wiener
>>> 
>>> https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/ <http://www.caam.rice.edu/~mk51/>
> 

-- 
Department of Mathematics and Center for Computation & Technology
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