Error if no reference time specified/found

[cemaccam]

Currently, if no reference time is specified at command line, and if config.yml specifies that CFizer should look for it in an input file but cannot find one, the program exits with the following error (when running on a single process):
process_serial (cfize+save): 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'calendar'

The program should instead fail before starting processing, in the absence of a reference date.

[cemaccam]

The ideal place to add a check for reference time, and exit if it doesn't exist, would be immediately prior to

g.update(
        {
            "time_units": time_units,
            "logfile": f'cfizer_{datetime.now().isoformat(sep="_", timespec="minutes").replace(":", "")}.log',
        }
    )

(line 1254) in cfize.py.

[sjboeing]

You are a hero Cameron. I will keep you posted (submitting some proposals next week but will try to give this a go).

[sjboeing]

I got it to work (figured I had copied the wrong file for the inputs). Happy to merge PR #42, @cemaccam. Would it be OK to make the repository publicly visible. I will get in touch with Paul Barrett but also mention the caveat that it requires files formatted in a specific way,

[cemaccam]

Glad you got it working, @sjboeing . If PR #42 is working ok, it can be merged, but will need some care, to incorporate changes made to Main since.
Regarding visibility, I'm fine with it, but suggest you check in with @MarkUoLeeds and @AnneBarber1 first. @AnneBarber1 has added some notes to the readme to make it clearer how to ensure correct functioning.
In the long term, if this work continues, I think it would be worth taking the slight performance hit to better compartmentalise the various functions - fully separate the dataset-wrangling (merging, splitting, and associated metadata changes) from CF-compliance functions.