wgrib2: new grib
Introduction
When wgrib2 is processing a field, it has a copy of the grid point values
and grib (sub-)message in memory. There are options that allow you to
change the in-memory grid point values (ex. -rpn, -undefine). After
changing the grid point values, you can write out new grib message
using the updated in-memory grid point values using the
-grib_out option. The packing/comprression
using by -grib_out option is selected by the
-set_grib_type option.
wgrib2 also has options for modifying the meta-data of the
in-memory grib (sub-)message. Options like -set_var will set
the variable name, -set_lev will change the level, -set_date will
change the date code in the in-memory grib (sub-)message.
Once you have modified the meta-data, you can write out a new grib
message using the -grib_out or
-grib options. The former will write out the
message using the in-memory grid point values and the latter will use the
in-memory grib message and original gridded values. The former
is slower because it has to pack or compress the data.
Why
Making grib-1 files was a pain because you had to specify much
meta-data and had to worry about the packing. Making grib-2
files is even more painful because there is more meta-data
to specify and more libraries are needed for packing/compression.
One way to get around the meta-data problem is to use a
template (a grib file with all the common metadata) and
use some routines to modify the variable/level/date/etc codes.
You still have to put the metadata into the template but
you should be able to reuse the template.
The approach described in the first two paragraphs is a way
to make new grib2 files using the template approach. For
example, one may want to convert a data set into grib. After
making a template, one could use the
-import options.
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