5.2.4 List Processing

The list processing mode of the timeLoop handles a series of comletely independent input dates. This mode is particularly useful for compositing, where seemingly random dates are accessed and handled together. In this case, the dates and times are given as a vector of strings to the timeLoop function. The order of the string is: yyyy/mm/dd/hh/fff , where fff is a three-digit forecast time (optional, with a default of 000 for analysis data. To loop over a series of dates, implement something similar to the following.

     timer => timeLoop('list',fileType,dates=(/'1963/01/10/00', &
      '1972/02/18/12','1980/04/28/18','2001/02/11/06'/))

This will loop over analyses from the given dates/times. Note that the first input string is used to determine the maximum length of all subsequent date definitions, so if you wish to include forecast specifiers in the loop, then this must be done for at least the first date string. For example, if the first string were 1963/01/10/00 and the second string were 1972/02/18/12/006, the second string would be clipped (without warning) to 1972/02/18/12. The correct way to implement this looping would be to define the first date as 1963/01/10/00/000, which would result in the expected handling of the second date string. Thus, when in doubt, err on the side of providing as much information as possible to the list.