Introduction

Xancil is a X-windows based application for creating Unified Model ancillary files from NetCDF input files. The current version supports the creation of the following atmosphere ancillary files


along with these ocean ancillary files


and finally Generalised Ancillary Files can be used for files which don't fit into the above categories.

Ancillary files can be created for use in both old and new dynamics versions of the model, and can be in 64 bit ieee format including the option of 32 bit data packing or 32 bit ieee format. The files can be written in either big or little endian format. Well formed IO (WFIO) ancillary files can be created with a user specified record size. See the Configuration panels section for further details.

The current state of the information entered into the Xancil panels can be saved as a job file using one of the Save Job or Save Job As buttons and reloaded at a later date using the Load Job button. The job file consists of a list of Tcl variables each of which corresponds to an input in a Xancil panel. The Save Namelist or Save Namelist As buttons convert these Tcl variables into a Fortran namelist file and this is used as input to an executable file, which creates the UM ancillary files. By default this executable is called mkancil and is located in the same directory as the xancil executable. The default name for the namelist file is xancil.namelist but this can be changed by using the Save Namelist As button. The Create Anc. files button will create the namelist file and automatically run mkancil to create the UM ancillary files. The Quit button will quit Xancil and if you do not wish to lose any input data remember to save a job file. Xancil can be given the following command line arguments: 

-execute           : Create namelist and run ancillary executable
-x                 : As -execute
-execname execfile : Specify name of ancillary executable
                     (default /home/jeff/sunos_x86/bin/mkancil)
-xn execfile       : As -execname
-jobfile jobfile   : Load jobfile into xancil
-j jobfile         : As -jobfile
-namelist namelist : Create namelist file called namelist
                     (default xancil.namelist)
-nl                : As -namelist
-namelisttype      : Specify namelist type, either old or f90
                     (default f90)
-script script     : Use xancil to run script
-sc                : As -script
-usage             : Print this message

Examples of command line usage are, run Xancil with the specified job file pre-loaded 

xancil -j xancil_example.job

A previously saved job file can be loaded into Xancil, the namelist file created and the mkancil executable run to create the UM ancillary files without using the X-windows interface 

xancil -j xancil_example.job -x

Alternatively the mkancil executable can be run directly with the saved namelist file as input 

mkancil < xancil.namelist

More elaborate scripting is also possible.