Creating a software tool to reuse existing decoders

The Local Data Manager (LDM) was created by Unidata at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to relay atmospheric data in near real time to its community of universities and research facilities. Although the LDM successfully delivers data to its community, Unidata is considering other alternatives with more advanced options for data relay. One alternative to the LDM, the Network News Transfer Protocol-based InterNet News (INN), was shown to successfully deliver data. Since the interface that INN provides to these programs is different from the LDM's interface, a new piece of software to pass INN articles to existing decoders was required. Decoders are used to transform data into a variety of formats for purposes such as visualization and input to other programs. This project's aim was to create a software tool called a decoder wrapper that allows data to be decoded via INN just as it is decoded via LDM. The decoder wrapper was created in C and then upgraded to an object oriented design to facilitate code comprehension and future modification. The created decoder wrapper will facilitate the use of both LDM and INN on the relay network, by putting INN's data products into a format desired by INN users. It will also facilitate further testing within Unidata of INN's capabilities for data relay.