File-naming conventions

All output file names have the form: root-filename.runid.time-indicator.output-format. Here root-filename is a name defined by the user through namelist input for each file type, runid is a character identifier for the run sequence, time-indicator depends on the output frequency chosen and output-format is either 'nc' for netCDF files or 'bin' for binary files. If the output file is written at a frequency of nday, nmonth or nyear, the time-indicator is typically the date in yyyymmdd (where yyyy, mm and dd can be optionally separated by a character defined in the time manager namelist). If the output file is written every nstep steps, the time-indicator is the step number.

A convention has been developed for naming POP output files in which the root filenames for restart, time-averaged history, snapshot history, and moviefiles are simply the one-letter names 'd', 't', 'h', 'm' respectively. These are the default values in the namelists for each of these options, but the user is not required to follow this convention. Come up with your own convention. We don't mind. Really.  Have fun with it. The only requirement is that the root-filename must be distinct for each type of output file. Because '.' is used to delimit runid in file names and '/' is reserved as a separator in Unix path names, neither should be used within runid.

CCSM4 Notes

CCSM4 scripts automatically generate CCSM4 POP2 output filenames that conform with the CCSM4 naming conventions, which, when written in the syntax of the LANL conventions, can be described as: $CASE.pop.root-filename.time-indicator.output-format

$CASE is the CCSM4 "case name" assigned to a given CCSM4 run.

In CCSM4 POP2, root-filename values are chosen to be the same as LANL values whenever possible; unfortunately, the CCSM4 convention is in direct conflict with two of the LANL settings. In CCSM4, root-filename is 'h' (history) for time-averaged history files created by the tavg.F90 module, and 's' (snapshot) for history files created by the history.F90 module. For diagnostics output files, root-filename is a two-character string beginning with the first character 'd', with the second character intended to indicate the type of diagnostics output file.

The full CCSM4 POP2 convention for root-filename is:

• 'dd'   diag_outfile
• 'dt'   diag_transport_outfile
• 'dv'   diag_velocity_outfile
• 'h'     tavg_outfile
• 'm'   movie_outfile
• 'r'     restart_outfile
• 's'     history_outfile

The CCSM4 time-indicator takes various forms, depending on the contents of the output file.

The full CCSM4 convention for time-indicator is as follows, and is automatically generated by the CCSM4 POP2 code, depending on the frequency of the file:

• 'yyyy-mm-dd-sssss'   'nhour', 'nsecond', or 'nstep' frequency
• 'yyyy-mm-dd'             daily frequency
• 'yyyy-mm'                   monthly frequency
• 'yyyy'                           annual frequency

The CCSM4 POP2 convention for output-format is identical to that for LANL POP2.