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3.29 File List Attributes

Availability: ncea, ncecat, ncra, ncrcat
Short options: ‘-H
Long options: ‘--fl_lst_in’, ‘--file_list
Many methods of specifying large numbers of input file names pass these names via pipes, encodings, or argument transfer programs (see Large Numbers of Files). When these methods are used, the input file list is not explicitly passed on the command line. This results in a loss of information since the history attribute no longer contains the exact command by which the file was created.

NCO solves this dilemma by archiving input file list attributes. When the input file list to a multi-file operator is specified via stdin, the operator, by default, attaches two global attributes to any file they create or modify. The nco_input_file_number global attribute contains the number of input files, and nco_input_file_list contains the file names, specified as standard input to the multi-file operator. This information helps to verify that all input files the user thinks were piped through stdin actually arrived. Without the nco_input_file_list attribute, the information is lost forever and the “chain of evidence” would be broken.

The ‘-H’ switch overrides (turns off) the default behavior of writing the input file list global attributes when input is from stdin. The ‘-h’ switch does this too, and turns off the history attribute as well (see History Attribute). Hence both switches allows space-conscious users to avoid storing what may amount to many thousands of filenames in a metadata attribute.