/--------------------------/
/  CDF V3.2 Release Notes  /
/--------------------------/

1. Compatibility with CDF 3.1, 2.7.2 and Earlier Versions

CDF V3.2 is backward compatible with the previous versions of CDF, and it 
can read CDF files that were created with CDF 3.1, or CDF 2.7.2 or earlier.  
If a file was created with CDF 2.7 and read and modified by CDF 3.2, the 
resultant file will be saved in the CDF 2.7 format, not CDF 3.2.  The same 
principle applies to files that were created with CDF 2.5 and 2.6.  CDF 
files that are created from scratch with CDF V3.2 are compatible with all
CDF 3.*, but not compatible (due to a 64-bit file offsets used since CDF 3.0  
versions) with CDF 2.7.2 or earlier, and an attempt to read CDF 3.* 
files from CDF 2.7.2 or earlier will produce an error.

Users of CDF 3.1 or later versions will be able to create CDF files that 
can be read by CDF 2.7.2 or earlier by using the CDFsetFileBackward 
function (in C) or CDF_set_FileBackward subroutine  (in Fortran), or using 
the CDF_FILEBACKWARD environment variable on Unix or PC, or 
CDF$FILEBACKWARD on OpenVMS.  See Section 4.18 of the CDF C 
Reference Manual and the CDF Fortran Reference Manual for details on how to 
create CDF 2.7-compatible files.

The command-line version of the CDFedit and CDFexport utility programs can 
now create CDF files that can be read by CDF 2.7.2 or earlier.

The <GET_, CDF_INFO_> routine now returns the data type of 64-bit off_t 
(or __int64 on Windows) for the compressed file size (cSize) and uncompressed 
file size (uSize) parameters in V3.2 while they used to return as 32-bit long 
integer in V2.5, 2.6 or 2.7.  Thus, if you have a legacy application that 
calls the <GET_, CDF_INFO_> routine, you MUST change the data type of the 
cSize and uSize parameters to off_t (or __int64 on Windows) from long to 
access files that were created with V3.2.  If the file accessed was created 
with V2.5, V2.6, or V2.7, you should always use 'long' instead of off_t to 
get the correct results.  Using off_t for non-3.0 files in V3.2 may or may 
not return the correct results depending upon what operating system it is 
executed under. 

Users of CDF 3.2 will be able to create CDF files with checksum by using
the CDFsetChecksum function (in C) or CDF_set_Checksum subroutine  (in Fortran), 
or using the CDF_CHECKSUM environment variable on Unix or PC, or CDF$CHECKSUM on 
OpenVMS.  See Section 4.19 of the CDF C Reference Manual and the CDF Fortran 
Reference Manual for details on how to operate the checksum feature from the 
library.



2. Changes

The following features have been added to CDF 3.2:

   * Added the checksum feature as a mechanism for CDF file integrity check.
   * The cdfedit and cdfconvert tools are modified to allow users to
     enable or disable the checksum feature.
   * Performance improvement for opening a CDF file in read-only mode
       (see the note below)
   * Miscellaneous bug fixes.

   NOTE:
      Since all the metadata is read in when READONLY is turned on, 
      performance is only improved to the degree that the metadata is 
      accessed by the client. If only a small portion of the metadata is 
      requested by the client, there will little, if any improvement. 
      There may be cases where performance actually is slightly degraded 
      if READONLY is turned on, there is a large amount of metadata,
      and very little metadata is actually requested. 


3. How to Obtain the CDF 3.2 Software

    For OpenVMS systems via anonymous FTP:

        a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/cdf32/vms
        b. Download README_VMS.txt, cdf32-dist.bck and 
           RESET_BACKUP_SAVESET_FILE_ATTRIBUTES.COM 
        c. Follow the instructions in README_VMS.txt.

        The CDF Java APIs and tools are not fully tested for the
        VMS/OpenVMS operating system, and they'll be made available at 
        the place where the new CDF 3.2 library is located once fully 
        tested. The new CDF 3.2 library is available now.


    For Linux/UNIX (including Windows running Cygwin or MingW) systems 

        a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/cdf32/unix
        b. Browse the AAREADME.txt file first and determine which tar 
           file suits your needs.

        There are 4 gzipped tar files (i.e. cdf32-dist-all.tar.gz, 
        cdf32-dist-cdf.tar.gz, cdf32-dist-java.tar.gz, and PerlCDF32.tar.gz).
        cdf-32-dist-all.tar.gz contains everything CDF offers except the
        Perl-CDF APIs.  This file is recommended for both
        CDF novice and expert users. The two jar files, cdfjava.jar and 
        cdfml.jar, are for people who only want to install or upgrade Java-CDF 
        or CDFML portion of the CDF distribution. 

        /***************************/
        /*  NOTE for Ubuntu users  */
        /***************************/
        By default, the Ubuntu operating system doesn't come with 
        ncurses.h that is needed to build the command-line based
        interactive CDF tools (cdfedit and cdfexport).  If you
        don't need these two tools (other CDF tools will still be 
        built without ncurses.h) or don't have ncurses.h, you need 
        to disable the "CURSES" option to "no".

              OS=linux ENV=gnu all CURSES=no

        You can install the ncurses header files including ncurses.h by 
        installing the ncurses development package with the following 
        command:

              apt-get install libncurses5-dev 


    For Macintosh OS X Version 10.2 or later
        a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/cdf32/macOSx
        b. Download the cdf32_setup.tar.gz file.  Upon completion of the 
           download, the Web browser will automatically uncompress the file and
           initiate the installation process.


    For 32-bit or 64-bit Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista
        a. Go to ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/dist/cdf32/w32
        b. Download the cdf32_setup.exe file.  Double-click the downloaded
           file for installation.


The CDF documents are available at ftp://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/cdf/doc/cdf32 
in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.  The documentation set consists 
of the followings:

        cdf32ug.pdf  (CDF User's Guide)
        cdf32crm.pdf (CDF C Reference Manual)
        cdf32frm.pdf (CDF Fortran Reference Manual)
        cdf32prm.pdf (CDF Perl Reference Manual)
        cdf32jrm.pdf (CDF Java Reference Manual)
        cdf32ifd.pdf (CDF Internal Format Description)

Documentation for the CDF Java APIs is also available at
http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdfjava_doc

We have a user support office for CDF that you can contact when you need an
assistance.  For requests, please send emails to:

  Internet -- cdfsupport@listserv.gsfc.nasa.gov

Please let us know (via an email to CDFSUPPORT) if you get the distribution.
We would like to know who has the distribution so we know who to contact
when updates are available.

CDFsupport
