In order to export IDFS data to the CDF format utilizing the exportIDFS program, CDF must be installed on the local machine. The following information serves as a guide to help with the installation of CDF for the various platforms supported by exportIDFS. Please note that the exportIDFS program is compiled using CDF version 2.6. However, for purposes of this discussion, the user is advised to retrieve and install CDF version 2.7; the reason being that Version 2.7 has been recently updated to fix a bug within one of the toolkit programs utilized by the exportIDFS program. The user can retrieve the CDF software directly from the CDF home page.
On the CDF home page, towards the bottom of the page, find the Obtaining CDF software and documentation heading. Click on the link labeled CDF Anonymous FTP Site . A listing for the current directory (/standards/cdf) will be displayed. Select the dist directory. For the Unix installation, select the cdf27 directory. From the listing displayed, select the unix directory. Two files need to be retrieved from this directory. First, the file labeled README.install should be retrieved. This file contains the directions for making the CDF libraries and CDF tools that are utilized by the exportIDFS program. The second file to be retrieved is the actual CDF distribution file labeled cdf27-dist-cdf. The user has 3 selections to pick from: (1) a simple tar file cdf27-dist-cdf.tar, (2) a tar file that has been compressed using the 'compress' utility cdf27-dist-cdf.tar.Z and (3) a tar file that has been compressed using the Gnu 'gzip' utility cdf27-dist-cdf.tar.gz. Select one of the three archives. Once the files have been retrieved, the user should follow the directions provided in the README.install file. Keep in mind that since the "make" facility will be used, the environment variable RANLIB must be set.
The following example works for a linux operating system, utilizing the 'tcsh' shell. If the user is using the Korn, Bash, posixSHELL or Bourne shell, the user is reminded to use the "export" command in place of the "setenv" command throughout the example section provided below. Note that the file cdf27-dist-cdf.tar has been placed in the directory ~user/CDFv2.7.
In the example provided, since the user utilizes the 'tcsh' shell, only the definitions.C file is modified. It is suggested that all 3 definitions files in the bin directory be modified so that other user's may utilize the CDF software.
On the CDF home page, towards the bottom of the page, find the Obtaining CDF software and documentation heading. Click on the link labeled CDF Anonymous FTP Site . A listing for the current directory (/standards/cdf) will be displayed. Select the dist directory. For the Windows installation, select the cdf27 directory. From the listing displayed, select the w32 directory. One file entitled CDFTOOLS32.EXE needs to be retrieved from this directory. This file contains the CDF library and the CDF tool programs that are utilized by the exportIDFS program. Once the file has been retrieved, the user should run this application in order to unzip the contents of the file.
After the CDFTOOLS32.EXE application has been run, a directory labeled cdftools32 will exist. Located in this directory is a file entitled Readme.1st. The user should follow the directions provided in this file to complete the CDF installation.
The following example works under Windows utilizing a Cygwin terminal window. Note that the file CDFTOOLS32.EXE has been placed in the directory D:/CDFv2.7.
On the CDF home page, towards the bottom of the page, find the Obtaining CDF software and documentation heading. Click on the link labeled CDF Anonymous FTP Site . A listing for the current directory (/standards/cdf) will be displayed. Select the dist directory. For the MAC OS installation, select the cdf27 directory. From the listing displayed, select the mac directory. One file entitled cdf27.sit.hqx needs to be retrieved from this directory. The user may wish to retrieve the Release.notes file for a brief discussion pertinent to Macintosh systems.
While installing the software onto a MAC OS X system, a few hiccups were encountered, which were ironed out with help from the CDF Support group. The user is advised to follow the instructions provided by CDF, and if any problems arise, e-mail the CDF help desk. The individuals are very responsive and have a much more in-depth experience base from which to draw upon in answering any CDF related questions.