1. What is MFEXT Scientific Addon?¶
This module provides additional sets of tools and libraries of the MetWork MFEXT module, for scientific development.
It doesn’t contain any services, it is just a bunch of files and directories.
Like MFEXT, it is staged in logical and/or technical layers. You may check mfext:layerapi2 documentation for more about layers concept and technical details.
The available libraries and sets of tools in MFEXT can be found by checking the documentation about layers or the Index, or by using the search box.
2. Usage¶
2.1. General¶
After installation, there is no service to initialize or to start.
All the files are located in /opt/metwork-mfext-{BRANCH} directory with probably
a /opt/metwork-mfext => /opt/metwork-mfext-{BRANCH} symbolic link (depending
on what you have installed).
Because /opt is not used by default on standard Linux, the installation shouldn’t break anything.
Therefore, if you do nothing specific after the installation, you won’t benefit from any included software packages !
So, to use this module, you have to load a kind of “metwork environment”. There are several ways to do that.
In the following, we use {MFEXT_HOME} as the installation directory of the mfext module. It’s probably something like /opt/metwork-mfext-{BRANCH} or /opt/metwork-mfext. Have a look in /opt directory.
2.2. Usage (for one command only)¶
If you want to load the “mfext environment” for one command only and return back to a standard running environment after that, you can use the specific wrapper.
Let’s assume we want to use the ncatted utility of the nco toolkit provided in the scientific layer.
##### Shell session example #####
# where is the system ncatted command ?
$ which ncatted
/usr/bin/which: no ncatted in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin)
# => the ncatted is not in the the standard/system path
# execute ncatted through the mfext wrapper
# (please replace {MFEXT_HOME} by the real mfext home !)
$ {MFEXT_HOME}/bin/mfext_wrapper which ncatted
/opt/metwork-mfext-[...]/opt/scientific/bin/ncatted
# => this is the MetWork ncatted command included in the MetWork scientific layer
# what is the version of the ncatted command ?
$ {MFEXT_HOME}/bin/mfext_wrapper ncatted --version
NCO netCDF Operators version 4.7.6 built by nobody on 2bdf6070026e at Jun 6 2019 21:01:07
ncatted version 4.7.6
2.3. Usage (for the whole shell session)¶
If you are tired to use mfext_wrapper repeatedly, you can load the “mfext environment” for the whole shell session.
##### Shell session example #####
# where is the system ncatted command ?
$ which ncatted
/usr/bin/which: no ncatted in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin)
# => the ncatted is not in the the standard/system path
# load the mfext environment for the whole shell session
$ source {MFEXT_HOME}/share/interative_profile
__ __ ___ __ _
| \/ | | / / | |
| / | ___| | / / /__ _ __| | __
| |\/| |/ _ __\ \/ \/ / _ \| '__| |/ /
| | | | __/ |_ / / (_) | | | <
|_| |_|\___|\__| \/ \/ \___/|_| |_|\_\
17:01:04 up 19 days, 5:22, 1 user, load average: 0.75, 0.71, 0.45
# => the interactive environment is loaded
# execute ncatted through the mfext wrapper
# (please replace {MFEXT_HOME} by the real mfext home !)
$ {MFEXT_HOME}/bin/mfext_wrapper which ncatted
/opt/metwork-mfext-[...]/opt/scientific/bin/ncatted
# => this is the MetWork ncatted command included in the MetWork scientific layer
# what is the version of the ncatted command ?
$ {MFEXT_HOME}/bin/mfext_wrapper ncatted --version
NCO netCDF Operators version 4.7.6 built by nobody on 2bdf6070026e at Jun 6 2019 21:01:07
ncatted version 4.7.6
Note
2.4. Usage (automatically for one user)¶
If you want to have a system user with “always loaded” metwork environment, you can add:
source {MFEXT_HOME}/share/interactive_profile
in (for example) in the user .bash_profile file.
An alternative way is to add
alias mfext="source {MFEXT_HOME}/share/interactive_profile"
in .bash_profile file and use this mfext alias when you want to quickly load the “mfext environment”.