General Remarks

General Remarks#

Acquiring the Software and Documentation#

The CGNS Mid-Level Library may be downloaded from the CGNS site. The manual, as well as the other CGNS documentation is available from the CGNS documentation website.

Organization of This Manual#

The sections that follow describe the Mid-Level Library functions in detail. The first three sections cover basic file operations (i.e., opening and closing a CGNS file, and CGNS internal configuration options), accessing a specific node in a CGNS database, and error handling. The remaining sections describe the functions used to read, write, and modify nodes and data in a CGNS database. These sections basically follow the organization used in the Section Detailed CGNS Node Descriptions.

Syntax#

The API descriptions are structured as follows. First, a brief overview is provided, followed by an optional, more detailed explanation. Next, the argument parameters are listed, accompanied by descriptions of each variable. Finally, there is a summary of the return value. Note, as of CGNS-3.1.0, some of the arguments to the Mid-Level Library have changed from int to cgsize_t to support 64-bit data. Changed APIs can quickly be identified by searching for cgsize_t.

Language#

The CGNS Mid-Level Library is written in C, but each function has a Fortran counterpart. All function names start with “cg_”. The Fortran functions have the same name as their C counterpart with the addition of the suffix “_f”.

Character Strings#

All data structure names and labels in CGNS are limited to 32 characters. When reading a file, it is advised to pre-allocate the character string variables to 32 characters in Fortran, and 33 in C (to include the string terminator). Other character strings, such as the CGNS file name or descriptor text, are unlimited in length. The Mid-Level Library will create the space for unlimited-length character strings; it is then the application’s responsibility to release this space by a call to cg_free.

Error Status#

All C functions return an integer value representing the error status. All Fortran functions have an additional parameter, ier, which contains the error status value. An error status different from zero implies that an error occurred. The error message can be printed using the error handling functions of the CGNS library. The error codes are coded in the C and Fortran include files cgnslib.h and the CGNS module (or cgnslib_f.h).

Typedefs#

Beginning with CGNS-3.1.0, two new typedef variables have been introduced to support 64-bit mode. The cglong_t typedef is always a 64-bit integer, and cgsize_t will be either a 32-bit or 64-bit integer, depending on how the library was built. Many of the C functions in the MLL have been changed to use cgsize_t instead of int in the arguments. These functions include any that may exceed the 2Gb limit of an int, e.g., zone dimensions, element data, boundary conditions, and connectivity.

Several types of variables are defined using typedefs in the cgnslib.h file. These are intended to facilitate the implementation of CGNS in C. These variable types are defined as an enumeration of keywords admissible for any variable of these types. The file cgnslib.h must be included in any C application programs that use these data types.

Fortran defines the same keywords as integer parameters in the CGNS module (previously cgnslib_f.h). Such variables should be declared as integer in Fortran applications. The CGNS module (previously cgnslib_f.h) must be included in any Fortran application using these keywords.

Note

The first two enumerated values in these lists, xxxNull and xxxUserDefined, are only available in the C interface, and are provided in the advent that your C compiler does strict type checking. In Fortran, these values are replaced by the numerically equivalent CG_Null and CG_UserDefined. These values are also defined in the C interface. Thus, either form may be used. The function prototypes for the MLL use CG_Null and CG_UserDefined, rather than the more specific values.

List of enumerated values (key words) for each of these variable types (typedefs)

Character Names for Typedefs#

The CGNS library defines character arrays that map the typedefs above to character strings. These are global arrays dimensioned to the size of each list of typedefs. To retrieve a character string representation of a typedef, use the typedef value as an index to the appropriate character array. For example, to retrieve the string “Meter” for the LengthUnits_t Meter typedef, use LengthUnitsName[Meter]. Functions are available to retrieve these names without the need for direct global data access. These functions also do bounds checking on the input, and if out of range, will return the string “<invalid>”. An additional benefit is that these will work from within a Windows DLL, and are thus the recommended access technique. The routines have the same name as the global data arrays, but with a “cg_” prepended. For the example above, use cg_LengthUnitsName(Meter).

Typedef Name Access Functions#

const char *cg_MassUnitsName(MassUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_LengthUnitsName(LengthUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_TimeUnitsName(TimeUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_TemperatureUnitsName(TemperatureUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_ElectricCurrentUnitsName(ElectricCurrentUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_SubstanceAmountUnitsName(SubstanceAmountUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_LuminousIntensityUnitsName(LuminousIntensityUnits_t type)#

const char *cg_DataClassName(DataClass_t type)#

const char *cg_GridLocationName(GridLocation_t type)#

const char *cg_BCDataTypeName(BCDataType_t type)#

const char *cg_GridConnectivityTypeName(GridConnectivityType_t type)#

const char *cg_PointSetTypeName(PointSetType_t type)#

const char *cg_GoverningEquationsTypeName(GoverningEquationsType_t type)#

const char *cg_ModelTypeName(ModelType_t type)#

const char *cg_BCTypeName(BCType_t type)#

const char *cg_DataTypeName(DataType_t type)#

const char *cg_ElementTypeName(ElementType_t type)#

const char *cg_ZoneTypeName(ZoneType_t type)#

const char *cg_RigidGridMotionTypeName(RigidGridMotionType_t type)#

const char *cg_ArbitraryGridMotionTypeName(ArbitraryGridMotionType_t type)#

const char *cg_SimulationTypeName(SimulationType_t type)#

const char *cg_WallFunctionTypeName(WallFunctionType_t type)#

const char *cg_AreaTypeName(AreaType_t type)#

const char *cg_AverageInterfaceTypeName(AverageInterfaceType_t type)#

64-bit C Portability and Issues#

If you use the cgsize_t data type in new code, it will work in both 32 and 64-bit compilation modes. In order to support CGNS versions prior to 3.1, you may also want to add something like this to your code:

#if CGNS_VERSION < 3100
#define cgsize_t int
#endif

Existing code that uses int will not work with a CGNS 3.1 library compiled in 64-bit mode. You may want to add something like this to your code:

#if CGNS_VERSION >= 3100 && CG_BUILD_64BIT
#error does not work in 64 bit mode
#endif

or modify your code to use cgsize_t.

Calling CGNS from Fortran#

Starting with CGNS-3.3.0, a new CGNS module was added to the library. Fortran programs can use the new module by adding USE CGNS. The use of include 'cgnslib_f.h' is deprecated as of CGNS-3.3.0.

Note

Fortran Helper Functions

FUNCTION cg_get_type(buf)

Returns the data type of buf, where buf is a scalar. This is a useful function for automatically passing the correct data type of a buffer.

For example:

CALL cg_coord_read_f(cg,base,zone,coordname,cg_get_type(mydata(1)),rmin,DataSize,mydata,ier)

64-bit Fortran Portability#

Starting with CGNS-3.3.0, the Fortran APIs have the following specifications (recommended for portability):

Fortran arguments should be declared as the default INTEGER if the corresponding argument in the C API is declared as an int.

Fortran arguments should be declared as INTEGER(cgsize_t) if the corresponding argument in the C API is declared as cgsize_t.

Fortran arguments should be declared as type INTEGER(cgenum_t) if the corresponding argument in the C API is declared as enumerated values (enums).

An integer parameter,`` CG_BUILD_64BIT``, can be used to tell the size of cgsize_t, which will be set to 1 in 64-bit mode and 0 otherwise. You may use this parameter to check at run time if the CGNS library has been compiled in 64-bit mode or not, as in:

IF (CG_BUILD_64BIT .NE. 0) THEN
    PRINT *,'will not work in 64-bit mode'
    STOP
ENDIF

If you are using a CGNS library prior to version 3.1, this parameter will not be defined, and you will need to rely on your compiler initializing all undefined values to 0 (not always the case) for this test to work.

Warning

The following practice is not recommended!

If you have explicitly defined your default integers, which are passed to the CGNS library as INTEGER*8, or used a compiler option to promote implicit integers to INTEGER*8, then you MUST compile the CGNS library with the same compiler option to promote implicit integers to INTEGER*8. If you really must promote all integers to INTEGER*8 in your code, and you are not able to compile the CGNS library with the same compiler options, then it is recommended that all arguments in the CGNS Fortran APIs should be declared as INTEGER(C_INT) if the corresponding argument in the C API is declared as an int.