problems when reading binary direct access big endian files which are large

Hi NCL'ers,

We need to read a binary big endian direct-acess file, do stuff with the data and re-write the file to binary big endian direct access again.
We are having trouble when re-writing, with this error:
fatal:fbindirread: The size implied by the dimension array and record number is greater that the size of the file, can't continue

Below is a simple script to illustrate the problem. When the array size is small, e.g, dx and dy = 100, the code works fine, no problem. When the array is large as in this example, we get the error.

begin
;--------------------- Inputs -------------------------
; define size array
dx = 15000
dy = 36000
;-----------------------------------------------------
x = new((/dx,dy/),"float")
x(:,:) = 1.0
; write x to direct access big endian
setfileoption("bin","WriteByteOrder","BigEndian")
system("rm -f test.bin")
fbindirwrite("test.bin",x)
delete(x)
; re-read the file
setfileoption("bin","ReadByteOrder","BigEndian")
x = fbindirread("test.bin",0,(/dx,dy/),"float")
;------------------------------------------------------
end ; this ends begin

Hence, this somehow seems related to file size. There is a "large file" type option for netcdf files, but not for binary files it seems?
I have already googled the error, and setting RecordMarkerSize will not fix the problem as it applies to sequential files….

Also, when dy and dx = 100, the file size makes sense:
[z3381484@monsoon ncl-scripts-general]$ ls -l test.bin
-rwx------. 1 z3381484 unsw 40000 Jan 29 17:21 test.bin
I.e, 100*100*4 = 40000

When dx = 15000, and dy = 36000, the size should be 15000*36000*4 = 2160000000, but instead it is:
[z3381484@monsoon ncl-scripts-general]$ ls -l test.bin
-rwx------. 1 z3381484 unsw 2147479552 Jan 29 17:31 test.bin

The machine i am running on is 64 bit Linux:
[z3381484@monsoon ncl-scripts-general]$ uname -a
Linux monsoon.ccrc.unsw.edu.au 2.6.32-358.23.2.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Oct 16 18:37:12 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

version of NCL is:
[z3381484@monsoon ncl-scripts-general]$ ncl -V
6.1.2

Cheers,
Jatin.

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Received on Tue Jan 28 23:35:36 2014