What tools does the CDF distributed package contain?

The following utility programs (a.k.a. CDF toolkit) are available in the CDF distribution package for the supported platforms:

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CDFcompare - This utility is used to display the differences between two CDF files. It has many options that can be specified to select what and how the data entities in CDFs to be compared.

CDFconvert - This program is used to convert various properties of a CDF. In all cases new CDFs are created (existing CDFs are not modified.) Any combination of the following properties may be changed when converting a CDF.

• A CDF created with an earlier release of the CDF library (e.g., CDF V2.5) may be converted to the current library release.
• The format of the CDF may be changed.
• The data encoding of the CDF may be changed.
• The variable majority of the CDF may be changed.

CDFdir - This utility is used to display a directory listing of a CDF’s files. The .cdf file is displayed first followed by the rVariable files and then the zVariable files (if either exist in a multi-file CDF) in numerical order.

CDFedit - This program allows the display and/or modification of practically all of the contents of a CDF by way of a full-screen interface. It is also possible to run CDFedit in a browse-only mode if that’s desired.

CDFexport - This program allows the entire contents or a portion of a CDF file to be exported to the terminal screen, a text file, or another CDF. The variables to be exported can be selected along with a filter range for each variable which allows a subset of the CDF to be generated. When exporting to another CDF, a new compression and sparseness can be specified for each variable. When exporting to the terminal screen or a text file, the format of the output can be tailored as necessary.

CDFinquire - This program displays the version of the CDF distribution being used and the default toolkit qualifiers.

CDFmerge - This program merges two or more CDF files into a single CDF. It can merge metadata and/or data.

CDFstats - This program produces a statistical report on a CDF’s variable data. Both rVariables and zVariables are analyzed. For each variable it determines the actual minimum and maximum values (in all of the variable records), the minimum and maximum values within the valid range (if the VALIDMIN and VALIDMAX vAttributes and corresponding entries are present in the CDF), and the monotonicity. An option exists to allow fill values (specified by the FILLVAL vAttribute) to be ignored when collecting statistics.

SkeletonTable - This program is used to create an ASCII text file called a skeleton table containing information about a given CDF (SkeletonTable can also be instructed to output the skeleton table to the terminal screen.) It reads a CDF file and writes into the skeleton table the following information.

1. Format (single or multi file), data encoding, variable majority
2. Number of dimensions and dimension sizes for the rVariables.
3. gAttribute definitions (and gEntry values)
4. rVariable and zVariable definitions and vAttribute definitions (with rEntry/zEntry values)
5. Data values for all or a subset of the CDF’s variables Traditionally, only NRV variable values are written to a skeleton table. RV variable values may now also be written

• The above information is written in a format that can be “understood” by the SkeletonCDF program. SkeletonCDF reads a skeleton table and creates a new CDF (called a skeleton CDF).

SkeletonCDF - This program is used to make a fully structured CDF, called a skeleton CDF, by reading a text file called a skeleton table. The skeleton table contains the information necessary to create a CDF that is complete in all respects except for record-variant (RV) variable values. (RV variables vary from record to record.) RV values are then written to the CDF by the execution of an application program. The SkeletonCDF program allows a CDF to be created with the following.

1. The necessary header information- the number of dimensions and dimension sizes for the rVariables, format, data encoding, and variable majority
2. The gAttribute definitions and any number of gEntries for each
3. The rVariable and zVariable definitions
4. The vAttribute definitions and the entries corresponding to each variable
5. The data values for those variables that are non-record-variant (NRV). NRV variables do not vary from record to record

CDFValidate - This program validates if a given file is a valid CDF file. If it’s a valid CDF file, it checks the integrity of CDF internal data structures.

CDFDump - This program is used to dump the data contents in a readable form from a CDF. It can dump metadata or/and data from the selected variables in a range of records. This program can also be used to validate a CDF.

CDFIRsDump - This is a diagnostic tool, which is used to dump the internal data records (in Hex) of a CDF. It is used to show the internal data structure of the file and in case there is a question about the file, it may show what the problem might be.

CDFLeapSecondsInfo - This is a tool for showing how the CDF-based Leap Second table is being accessed either externally or internally. Optionally, the table content can be shown.

The above toolkit software programs are available with the standard CDF distribution software.