McIDAS Programmer's Manual
Version 2003

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Chapter 5

Accessing Data

This chapter provides the information you will need to access and use McIDAS-X data. You'll learn:

• The attributes unique to each of the McIDAS-X data types: disk files, images, grids, point observations and text
• The API functions available for reading, writing and deleting McIDAS-X data
• The blocks of information contained in an image, grid, point observation or text
• How to use selection clauses to restrict a data search
• How the ability to integrate and display a variety of datasets is made possible by its navigation and calibration subsystems

This chapter is organized into these sections:

• McIDAS disk files
  
  Basic concepts
  Disk file APIs
  Reading and writing disk files
  Assigning a system pathname to a disk file
  Determining if a disk file exists
  Deleting the contents of a disk file
  Deleting a disk file
  Locking and unlocking a disk file
  Copying a disk file
• Image data
  
  Basic concepts
  What is an image object?
  Reading image objects
  Writing image objects to a dataset
  Deleting image objects
• Grid data
  
  Basic concepts
  What is a grid object?
  Reading grid objects
• Point data
  
  Basic concepts
  What is a point object?
  Reading point objects
  Reading the point-data file header
• Text data
  
  Flat-file text
  General weather text
• McIDAS navigation
  
  Basic concepts
  Using the navigation APIs
  Implementing an image navigation module
  Example navigation module code
• McIDAS calibration
  
  Basic concepts
  Designing your calibration module
  Writing your calibration module

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