I'm currently testing a move from METplus 4.1.3 (MET 10.1.2) to 5.0.0 (11.0.0), and noticed this change in behaviour.

Might be bug, but there's an easy work around, so reporting as a request for enhanced doco. I couldn't see anything in the release notes or any related issues, please close if already documented somewhere.

Describe the Enhancement

With METplus 4.1.3 I can run the following without errors
plot_data_plane some_fcst.nc output.ps 'name="apcp";level="(20230102,*,*)";'

With METplus 5.0.0 I get the following:

WARNING: MetNcCFDataFile::convert_time_to_offset() -> 20230102 does not exist at time variable
WARNING:
ERROR  :
ERROR  : MetNcCFDataFile::data_plane(VarInfo &, DataPlane &) -> the requested time offset -9999 for "apcp" variable is out of range (between 0 and 9).
ERROR  :
ERROR  :

The workaround is to provide the date string with full HHMMSS format. e.g.
plot_data_plane some_fcst.nc output.ps 'name="apcp";level="(20230102_000000,*,*)";'

Note that this also applies to other tools. For example, to avoid similar errors in GridStat
FCST_VAR1_LEVELS = "({valid?fmt=%Y%m%d},*,*)"
Should become
FCST_VAR1_LEVELS = "({valid?fmt=%Y%m%d_%H%M%S},*,*)"

Time Estimate

Not much.

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Relevant Deadlines

NONE.

Funding Source

NONE.

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