COSMO Coding Standards

Last updated: September 2017

Since the start of the development of the LM, which is now called the COSMO-Model, a huge amount of time has been spent for implementing and using the corresponding software. And nowadays we not only use the COSMO-Model, but also other software within the COnsortium for Small-scale MOdeling, COSMO. Furthermore, the software is also used by other scientific partners, and also by other operational centers. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to develop a high-quality, reliable, portable and maintainable code.

To this end we developed the COSMO Standards for Source Code Development. The aim of this document is to provide some guidelines for several aspects of the development and programming process and should serve the following goals:

encourage well structured programming
increase readability and useability of source code
standardize the look and usage of source code units
create machine independent portable source code
simplify maintenance tasks
facilitate quality management and control

The first official version of these Standards were released September 2011 and they shall now continuously be updated and adjusted to future needs.

The actual (but also former) version of the Standards can be downloaded here.

Version	Date	Changes	Download
1.4	August 2017	Editorial changes from CLM (TAG → SUPTECH) Chapter 4: Added OpenACC Style Guide Chapter 6: Remarks for testing with ICON Appendix D: Editorial changes to the table	pdf (0.5 Mb)
1.3	August 2015	Editorial changes in Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 6 Chapter 4: Included a link to the C++ Style Guide Chapter 6.8: Added: COSMO-ICON coordination Chapter 2, Appendix D: Changes for CLM	pdf (0.4 Mb)
1.2	August 2014	Chapter 6.1: Included definition of Recommended CLM-Community Version Added Appendix D: Steps of Code Development for CLM-Community Model Versions Chapter 6.6: Description for meteorological test suites for NWP applications Chapter 5.3: Documentation of scientifically oriented code	pdf (0.4 Mb)
1.1	August 2012	Clarified Chapter 2 and made it compatible with rest of document Added another rule for `MODULE`s in the Style and Typing Rules Enhanced Section 6.4: Release Planning Updated Section 6.5 and 6.6 with work actually ongoing.	pdf (0.3 Mb)
1.0	August 2011	First Version	pdf (0.3 Mb)