Jedwards/parallel gdal

[jedwards4b]

Potentially replaces #2018 Currently debugging tests.

[jedwards4b]

@msl3v this branch includes the GDAL option in the cmake build (but not yet in the autotools build).
It passes all of the tests except the test_gdal.c (with and without -DPIO_USE_GDAL=ON -DGDAL_ROOT=/path/to/gdal/root)
I don't think that you ever had a working gdal test - did you? Also only one datatype, PIO_DOUBLE, is supported for reading gdal - is that correct?

[jedwards4b]

Update - the autotools build now works and all non-gdal related tests are passing.

[msl3v]

Hey @jedwards4b. Couple of things:

1. It looks like this is the current working PR, correct?
2. Remind me where the code is limited to reading PIO_DOUBLE, please. Where I thought to look I see double, float and int reads. But there may be some upstream code that limits the read to PIO_DOUBLE (it's been a while)
3. You're correct, there was never a gdal_test. I simply used the ESMF test harnesses for developing this.

[anntsay]

@jedwards4b and @msl3v (copy @oehmke )
Hi Michael, thanks for spotting the PR!
(1) Yes, this is the current working PR for your GDAL.. if you could take a look to see whether Jim's modification fits what you are trying to do, that would be great.
(2) Jim, could you help?
(3) Hi Michael, regarding tests, when I talked to Jim, sounds like some tests are failing... could you take a look at the tests (after you confirmed Jim's modification). Let us know (Bob and I) if you need help to figure out the ESFM testing failure... thanks!

[jedwards4b]

We need a test that works in a standalone PIO build. Testing only with ESMF is not adequate to maintain the integrity of the parallelio library. There is a framework in place for a test. https://github.com/NCAR/ParallelIO/pull/2020/changes#diff-16d9627e010f3d9410907e5314ca5a778243bb30c8dc4b1b81c2113d3bfb643a

I think that I misspoke about it only working with PIO_DOUBLE, I'm not sure now where that concern came from.

[anntsay]

Thanks Jim!
Hi Michael, could you see if you could add a unit test in PIO as Jim mentioned? Let us know if you need help on that. thanks!

[msl3v]

Thanks @anntsay and @jedwards4b

I can do the unit test. Stay tuned.