User Interfaces

Command Line

After setting one's path appropriately to include the JGOFS binaries, one can type commands which directly invoke programs that communicate with the data system. Such commands can also be incorporated in a shell script (perhaps with arguments) for repetitive operations. The basic commands are

Listing Data Objects

readdct: Presents the names of the data objects with a brief description.

Listing an Object

listvar "object": Lists the variables in the object, with indenting indicating the hierarchical structure.
list "object": Lists the data; In addition, there are options for other kinds of listings:; list [-n] [-s] [-t] [-f] [-b] [-c] [-z] object [outfile]

Plotting

p "object" [-r] [-l] xvar [-r] [-l] yvar [-sym ] [+sym ] [-siz ] [-nobrk] [-brk breakvar]: X-Y plot (autoscaled)
view xv0 yv0 xv1 yv1: Sets position of lower left and upper right corners of plotting area on the page (0 to 100)
window x0 y0 x1 y1: Sets user units for lower left and upper right corner
axis [-l] x/y tic label num format: Draws axis
pl "object" [-l] xvar [-l] yvar [-sym ] [+sym ] [-siz ] [-nobrk] [-brk breakvar]: Plots lines, symbols, or connected symbols
dash "object" [-l] xvar [-l] yvar dashpattern: Plots with dashed lines
text "text" x/y/-x/-y size xloc yloc [-u]: Write text on graphics screen
ers: Erase page
ch filename var=value [var=value ...]: Change a file with lines giving values to variables; c.f. plot.var

Example

As an example, consider the following shell script twoplot:

!/bin/csh -f
ers
view 15 20 45 80
window 0 500 20 0
axis x 5 Temperature 10 dd.d
axis y 100 Pressure 500 ddd
pl "/test(station=$1)" temp press
view 65 20 95 80
window 33 500 36 0
axis x 0.5 Salinity 1 dd.d
axis y 100 Pressure 500 ddd
dash "/test(station=$1)" sal press ----....----....

The command

twoplot 6

produces

Menu Interfaces

The menu interfaces provide a means for organizing the commands, showing information in several windows so that one can keep more than one result on the screen, and keeping information such as the object name from command to command. The X version provides a "point and click" kind of access, but can, in fact also execute typed commands.

Browser Interface

The browser interface can be used from UNIX-X, MS-DOS-Windows, and Mac machines. You can try it here. In addition, It is possible to install software on UNIX machines which allows you to use the local server and obtain full functionality through browers.