Support for binary files

[EdwardSafford-NOAA]

@CoryMartin-NOAA this isn't so much an issue (yet) as it is a question. The DA monitors, as currently configured, extract and store data in binary files, and the files are then used to plot data over specific ranges, usually out to 30 days. So I think I'll need some python utilities to read and write to binary files in order to make those time-series plots.

So if I put together some simple read/write python utilities for binary files where would they best be located? Here in PyGSI, emcpy, or someplace else?

Related information -- I know that eventually EMC is to acquire a cloud based database. I checked with Eric Rodgers and he reports that the specifics on that database are not yet known, and that it will be at least a year before it is implemented. So, in the mean time, the monitors will need to continue to use a file-based storage mechanism. Thoughts?

[CoryMartin-NOAA]

@EdwardSafford-NOAA I would say since they are GSI-centric (or at least legacy/current ops) then putting these tools in PyGSI makes sense to me. Eventually, with JEDI, we would probably want to use netCDF or some other format besides raw binary to store time series data and other intermediate computations (averaging, etc.) (the exact implementation of this has been discussed but no solution yet) , but no sense reinventing the wheel at this point.