Describe the Problem

This issue was raised by @jwraby via the dtcenter/METplus#2907 METplus Discussion.

@jwraby also raised a second issue via the dtcenter/METplus#2920, that can also be fixed with this issue.
Modify the is_eq(a,b) logic to return true when both a and b are bad data, specifically NaN. But make sure that change does not cause unintended differences.

In MET version 11.1.0, ascii2nc was able to handle tab-delimited inputs but they cause a runtime error in MET version 12.0.0:

ERROR  : StringArray::operator[](int) const -> range check error!

The problem was introduced by pull request #2846 for issue #2654. Line number 75 of iabp_handler.cc assumes the input is space-separated which causes the parsing error.

An easy temporary workaround is using the -format command line option (e.g. -format met_point) to bypass this error in the determine_ascii_format() function.

For this issue, recommend fixing the underlying parsing issue as well as adding a new unit test to run ascii2nc with tab-delimited input.

Relevant Deadlines

Recommend fixing in both the main_v12.0 and develop branches. However, wait until a bugfix release is actually needed prior to cutting v12.0.3.

Funding Source

2702701

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