StepRangeLen doesn't work as variable

[ryofurue]

Describe the bug

A StepRangeLen doesn't work as a variable. You need to convert it to an Array with collect(). [Sorry. I looked at the error message, but I don't know internals of julia well enough to understand what unsafe_convert() is.]

To Reproduce

using Dates
using NCDatasets
# create a sample file
tax = DateTime(2020,1,1):Dates.Day(1):DateTime(2020,1,4)
var = 10.0:10.0:40.0
#var = collect(10.0:10.0:40.0)
NCDataset("tmp.nc", "c") do ds
  defDim(ds, "time", Inf)
  defVar(ds, "time", tax, ("time",))
  defVar(ds, "var", var, ("time",))
end

Expected behavior

I hope ranges will be treated equally to vectors.

Environment

• operating system: macOS 13.5
• Julia version: 1.9.2, from juliaup.
• Output of the julia command versioninfo()

Julia Version 1.9.2
Commit e4ee485e909 (2023-07-05 09:39 UTC)
Platform Info:
 OS: macOS (arm64-apple-darwin22.4.0)
 CPU: 8 × Apple M1
 WORD_SIZE: 64
 LIBM: libopenlibm
 LLVM: libLLVM-14.0.6 (ORCJIT, apple-m1)
 Threads: 1 on 4 virtual cores

• NCDatasets version: v0.12.17
• Output of using Pkg; Pkg.status(mode=PKGMODE_MANIFEST): See below.

Full output
Error message:

ERROR: LoadError: conversion to pointer not defined for StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64}
Stacktrace:
  [1] error(s::String)
    @ Base ./error.jl:35
  [2] unsafe_convert(#unused#::Type{Ptr{Float64}}, a::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64})
    @ Base ./pointer.jl:67
  [3] unsafe_convert(#unused#::Type{Ptr{Nothing}}, a::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64})
    @ Base ./pointer.jl:66
  [4] nc_put_vara(ncid::Int32, varid::Int32, startp::Vector{Float64}, countp::Vector{Int64}, op::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64})
    @ NCDatasets ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/netcdf_c.jl:851
  [5] nc_put_var(ncid::Int32, varid::Int32, data::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64})
    @ NCDatasets ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/netcdf_c.jl:767
  [6] setindex!
    @ ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/variable.jl:374 [inlined]
  [7] setindex!(v::CommonDataModel.CFVariable{Float64, 1, NCDatasets.Variable{Float64, 1, NCDataset{Nothing}}, NCDatasets.Attributes{NCDataset{Nothing}}, NamedTuple{(:fillvalue, :missing_values, :scale_factor, :add_offset, :calendar, :time_origin, :time_factor), Tuple{Nothing, Tuple{}, Vararg{Nothing, 5}}}}, data::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64}, indexes::Colon)
    @ CommonDataModel ~/.julia/packages/CommonDataModel/RSBF3/src/cfvariable.jl:418
  [8] _defVar(ds::NCDataset{Nothing}, name::String, data::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64}, nctype::Type, dimnames::Tuple{String}; attrib::Vector{Any}, kwargs::Base.Pairs{Symbol, Union{}, Tuple{}, NamedTuple{(), Tuple{}}})
    @ NCDatasets ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/cfvariable.jl:235
  [9] _defVar
    @ ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/cfvariable.jl:186 [inlined]
 [10] #defVar#39
    @ ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/cfvariable.jl:183 [inlined]
 [11] defVar(ds::NCDataset{Nothing}, name::String, data::StepRangeLen{Float64, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Base.TwicePrecision{Float64}, Int64}, dimnames::Tuple{String})
    @ NCDatasets ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/cfvariable.jl:176
 [12] (::var"#3#4")(ds::NCDataset{Nothing})
    @ Main ~/Dropbox/jwk/try-netcdf-opendim.jl:12
 [13] NCDataset(::var"#3#4", ::String, ::Vararg{String}; kwargs::Base.Pairs{Symbol, Union{}, Tuple{}, NamedTuple{(), Tuple{}}})
    @ NCDatasets ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/dataset.jl:255
 [14] NCDataset(::Function, ::String, ::Vararg{String})
    @ NCDatasets ~/.julia/packages/NCDatasets/st9Jz/src/dataset.jl:252
 [15] top-level scope
    @ ~/Dropbox/jwk/try-netcdf-opendim.jl:9
 [16] include(fname::String)
    @ Base.MainInclude ./client.jl:478
 [17] top-level scope
    @ REPL[1]:1
in expression starting at /Users/furue/Dropbox/jwk/try-netcdf-opendim.jl:9

status(mode=PKGMODE_MANIFEST)
```Status ~/.julia/environments/v1.9/Manifest.toml
⌅ [47edcb42] ADTypes v0.1.6
[c3fe647b] AbstractAlgebra v0.31.1
[621f4979] AbstractFFTs v1.5.0
[1520ce14] AbstractTrees v0.4.4
[79e6a3ab] Adapt v3.6.2
[4fba245c] ArrayInterface v7.4.11
[0e736298] Bessels v0.2.8
[e2ed5e7c] Bijections v0.1.4
[d1d4a3ce] BitFlags v0.1.7
[179af706] CFTime v0.1.2
[49dc2e85] Calculus v0.5.1
[d360d2e6] ChainRulesCore v1.16.0
[944b1d66] CodecZlib v0.7.2
⌃ [35d6a980] ColorSchemes v3.22.0
[3da002f7] ColorTypes v0.11.4
[c3611d14] ColorVectorSpace v0.10.0
[5ae59095] Colors v0.12.10
[861a8166] Combinatorics v1.0.2
[1fbeeb36] CommonDataModel v0.2.4
[38540f10] CommonSolve v0.2.4
[bbf7d656] CommonSubexpressions v0.3.0
⌅ [34da2185] Compat v3.46.2
[b152e2b5] CompositeTypes v0.1.3
[f0e56b4a] ConcurrentUtilities v2.2.1
[8f4d0f93] Conda v1.9.1
[187b0558] ConstructionBase v1.5.3
[d38c429a] Contour v0.6.2
[717857b8] DSP v0.7.8
[9a962f9c] DataAPI v1.15.0
⌃ [864edb3b] DataStructures v0.18.14
[e2d170a0] DataValueInterfaces v1.0.0
[8bb1440f] DelimitedFiles v1.9.1
[163ba53b] DiffResults v1.1.0
[b552c78f] DiffRules v1.15.1
[0703355e] DimensionalData v0.24.13
⌃ [3c3547ce] DiskArrays v0.3.14
[31c24e10] Distributions v0.25.100
[ffbed154] DocStringExtensions v0.9.3
[5b8099bc] DomainSets v0.6.7
[fa6b7ba4] DualNumbers v0.6.8
[7c1d4256] DynamicPolynomials v0.5.2
[340492b5] EndpointRanges v0.2.2
[4e289a0a] EnumX v1.0.4
[460bff9d] ExceptionUnwrapping v0.1.9
[e2ba6199] ExprTools v0.1.10
[411431e0] Extents v0.1.1
[c87230d0] FFMPEG v0.4.1
[7a1cc6ca] FFTW v1.7.1
[bf96fef3] FieldMetadata v0.3.1
⌃ [1a297f60] FillArrays v1.5.0
[53c48c17] FixedPointNumbers v0.8.4
[4c728ea3] Flatten v0.4.3
[1fa38f19] Format v1.3.2
[59287772] Formatting v0.4.2
[f6369f11] ForwardDiff v0.10.36
[069b7b12] FunctionWrappers v1.1.3
[77dc65aa] FunctionWrappersWrappers v0.1.3
[46192b85] GPUArraysCore v0.1.5
[28b8d3ca] GR v0.72.9
[68eda718] GeoFormatTypes v0.4.1
[cf35fbd7] GeoInterface v1.3.1
[9a22fb26] GibbsSeaWater v0.1.2
[c27321d9] Glob v1.3.1
[42e2da0e] Grisu v1.0.2
[0b43b601] Groebner v0.4.2
[d5909c97] GroupsCore v0.4.0
[cd3eb016] HTTP v1.9.14
[34004b35] HypergeometricFunctions v0.3.23
[615f187c] IfElse v0.1.1
[18e54dd8] IntegerMathUtils v0.1.2
[8197267c] IntervalSets v0.7.7
[41ab1584] InvertedIndices v1.3.0
[92d709cd] IrrationalConstants v0.2.2
[c8e1da08] IterTools v1.8.0
[82899510] IteratorInterfaceExtensions v1.0.0
[1019f520] JLFzf v0.1.5
⌃ [692b3bcd] JLLWrappers v1.4.1
[682c06a0] JSON v0.21.4
[b964fa9f] LaTeXStrings v1.3.0
[2ee39098] LabelledArrays v1.14.0
[984bce1d] LambertW v0.4.6
[23fbe1c1] Latexify v0.16.1
[50d2b5c4] Lazy v0.15.1
⌃ [2ab3a3ac] LogExpFunctions v0.3.24
⌃ [e6f89c97] LoggingExtras v1.0.0
⌃ [1914dd2f] MacroTools v0.5.10
⌃ [20f20a25] MakieCore v0.6.4
[dbb5928d] MappedArrays v0.4.2
[739be429] MbedTLS v1.1.7
[442fdcdd] Measures v0.3.2
[e1d29d7a] Missings v1.1.0
[5cb8414e] ModuleInterfaceTools v1.0.1
[102ac46a] MultivariatePolynomials v0.5.1
⌃ [d8a4904e] MutableArithmetics v1.3.0
[85f8d34a] NCDatasets v0.12.17
[77ba4419] NaNMath v1.0.2
[510215fc] Observables v0.5.4
[6fe1bfb0] OffsetArrays v1.12.10
[4d8831e6] OpenSSL v1.4.1
[bac558e1] OrderedCollections v1.6.2
[90014a1f] PDMats v0.11.17
[d96e819e] Parameters v0.12.3
[69de0a69] Parsers v2.7.2
[b98c9c47] Pipe v1.3.0
[ccf2f8ad] PlotThemes v3.1.0
[995b91a9] PlotUtils v1.3.5
[a03496cd] PlotlyBase v0.8.19
[f2990250] PlotlyKaleido v2.1.0
[91a5bcdd] Plots v1.38.17
⌅ [f27b6e38] Polynomials v3.2.13
[d236fae5] PreallocationTools v0.4.12
⌃ [aea7be01] PrecompileTools v1.1.2
[21216c6a] Preferences v1.4.0
[27ebfcd6] Primes v0.5.4
[92933f4c] ProgressMeter v1.7.2
[438e738f] PyCall v1.96.1
⌃ [d330b81b] PyPlot v2.11.1
[1fd47b50] QuadGK v2.8.2
[fb686558] RandomExtensions v0.4.3
⌃ [3a07dd3d] RangeHelpers v0.1.9
⌃ [a3a2b9e3] Rasters v0.8.0
[3cdcf5f2] RecipesBase v1.3.4
[01d81517] RecipesPipeline v0.6.12
[731186ca] RecursiveArrayTools v2.38.7
[189a3867] Reexport v1.2.2
[05181044] RelocatableFolders v1.0.0
[ae029012] Requires v1.3.0
[79098fc4] Rmath v0.7.1
⌃ [f2b01f46] Roots v2.0.18
[7e49a35a] RuntimeGeneratedFunctions v0.5.12
[fdea26ae] SIMD v3.4.5
[0bca4576] SciMLBase v1.94.0
[c0aeaf25] SciMLOperators v0.3.6
[6c6a2e73] Scratch v1.2.0
[e8f3a9d7] SearchSortedNearest v0.1.1
[efcf1570] Setfield v1.1.1
[992d4aef] Showoff v1.0.3
[777ac1f9] SimpleBufferStream v1.1.0
[66db9d55] SnoopPrecompile v1.0.3
[a2af1166] SortingAlgorithms v1.1.1
⌃ [276daf66] SpecialFunctions v2.3.0
[90137ffa] StaticArrays v1.6.2
[1e83bf80] StaticArraysCore v1.4.2
[82ae8749] StatsAPI v1.6.0
[2913bbd2] StatsBase v0.34.0
[4c63d2b9] StatsFuns v1.3.0
[b5087856] StrFormat v1.0.1
[68059f60] StrLiterals v1.1.0
[2efcf032] SymbolicIndexingInterface v0.2.2
[d1185830] SymbolicUtils v1.2.0
[0c5d862f] Symbolics v5.5.1
[3783bdb8] TableTraits v1.0.1
[bd369af6] Tables v1.10.1
[62fd8b95] TensorCore v0.1.1
[a759f4b9] TimerOutputs v0.5.23
[3bb67fe8] TranscodingStreams v0.9.13
[a2a6695c] TreeViews v0.3.0
[410a4b4d] Tricks v0.1.7
[781d530d] TruncatedStacktraces v1.4.0
⌃ [5c2747f8] URIs v1.4.2
[3a884ed6] UnPack v1.0.2
[1cfade01] UnicodeFun v0.4.1
⌃ [1986cc42] Unitful v1.15.0
[45397f5d] UnitfulLatexify v1.6.3
[a7c27f48] Unityper v0.1.5
[41fe7b60] Unzip v0.2.0
[81def892] VersionParsing v1.3.0
[6e34b625] Bzip2_jll v1.0.8+0
[83423d85] Cairo_jll v1.16.1+1
[2e619515] Expat_jll v2.5.0+0
⌃ [b22a6f82] FFMPEG_jll v4.4.2+2
[f5851436] FFTW_jll v3.3.10+0
[a3f928ae] Fontconfig_jll v2.13.93+0
[d7e528f0] FreeType2_jll v2.13.1+0
[559328eb] FriBidi_jll v1.0.10+0
[0656b61e] GLFW_jll v3.3.8+0
⌃ [d2c73de3] GR_jll v0.72.9+0
[78b55507] Gettext_jll v0.21.0+0
[6727f6b2] GibbsSeaWater_jll v3.5.2+0
[7746bdde] Glib_jll v2.74.0+2
[3b182d85] Graphite2_jll v1.3.14+0
⌅ [0234f1f7] HDF5_jll v1.12.2+2
[2e76f6c2] HarfBuzz_jll v2.8.1+1
⌃ [1d5cc7b8] IntelOpenMP_jll v2023.1.0+0
[aacddb02] JpegTurbo_jll v2.1.91+0
[f7e6163d] Kaleido_jll v0.2.1+0
[c1c5ebd0] LAME_jll v3.100.1+0
[88015f11] LERC_jll v3.0.0+1
[1d63c593] LLVMOpenMP_jll v15.0.4+0
[dd4b983a] LZO_jll v2.10.1+0
⌅ [e9f186c6] Libffi_jll v3.2.2+1
[d4300ac3] Libgcrypt_jll v1.8.7+0
[7e76a0d4] Libglvnd_jll v1.6.0+0
[7add5ba3] Libgpg_error_jll v1.42.0+0
[94ce4f54] Libiconv_jll v1.16.1+2
[4b2f31a3] Libmount_jll v2.35.0+0
[89763e89] Libtiff_jll v4.5.1+1
[38a345b3] Libuuid_jll v2.36.0+0
⌃ [856f044c] MKL_jll v2023.1.0+0
⌃ [7243133f] NetCDF_jll v400.902.5+1
[e7412a2a] Ogg_jll v1.3.5+1
⌅ [458c3c95] OpenSSL_jll v1.1.21+0
[efe28fd5] OpenSpecFun_jll v0.5.5+0
[91d4177d] Opus_jll v1.3.2+0
[30392449] Pixman_jll v0.42.2+0
[c0090381] Qt6Base_jll v6.4.2+3
[f50d1b31] Rmath_jll v0.4.0+0
[a2964d1f] Wayland_jll v1.21.0+0
[2381bf8a] Wayland_protocols_jll v1.25.0+0
[02c8fc9c] XML2_jll v2.10.3+0
[aed1982a] XSLT_jll v1.1.34+0
⌃ [ffd25f8a] XZ_jll v5.4.3+1
[4f6342f7] Xorg_libX11_jll v1.8.6+0
[0c0b7dd1] Xorg_libXau_jll v1.0.11+0
[935fb764] Xorg_libXcursor_jll v1.2.0+4
[a3789734] Xorg_libXdmcp_jll v1.1.4+0
[1082639a] Xorg_libXext_jll v1.3.4+4
[d091e8ba] Xorg_libXfixes_jll v5.0.3+4
[a51aa0fd] Xorg_libXi_jll v1.7.10+4
[d1454406] Xorg_libXinerama_jll v1.1.4+4
[ec84b674] Xorg_libXrandr_jll v1.5.2+4
[ea2f1a96] Xorg_libXrender_jll v0.9.10+4
[14d82f49] Xorg_libpthread_stubs_jll v0.1.1+0
[c7cfdc94] Xorg_libxcb_jll v1.15.0+0
[cc61e674] Xorg_libxkbfile_jll v1.1.2+0
[12413925] Xorg_xcb_util_image_jll v0.4.0+1
[2def613f] Xorg_xcb_util_jll v0.4.0+1
[975044d2] Xorg_xcb_util_keysyms_jll v0.4.0+1
[0d47668e] Xorg_xcb_util_renderutil_jll v0.3.9+1
[c22f9ab0] Xorg_xcb_util_wm_jll v0.4.1+1
[35661453] Xorg_xkbcomp_jll v1.4.6+0
[33bec58e] Xorg_xkeyboard_config_jll v2.39.0+0
[c5fb5394] Xorg_xtrans_jll v1.5.0+0
[3161d3a3] Zstd_jll v1.5.5+0
⌅ [214eeab7] fzf_jll v0.29.0+0
[a4ae2306] libaom_jll v3.4.0+0
[0ac62f75] libass_jll v0.15.1+0
[f638f0a6] libfdk_aac_jll v2.0.2+0
[b53b4c65] libpng_jll v1.6.38+0
[f27f6e37] libvorbis_jll v1.3.7+1
[1270edf5] x264_jll v2021.5.5+0
[dfaa095f] x265_jll v3.5.0+0
[d8fb68d0] xkbcommon_jll v1.4.1+0
[0dad84c5] ArgTools v1.1.1
[56f22d72] Artifacts
[2a0f44e3] Base64
[ade2ca70] Dates
[8ba89e20] Distributed
[f43a241f] Downloads v1.6.0
[7b1f6079] FileWatching
[9fa8497b] Future
[b77e0a4c] InteractiveUtils
[4af54fe1] LazyArtifacts
[b27032c2] LibCURL v0.6.3
[76f85450] LibGit2
[8f399da3] Libdl
[37e2e46d] LinearAlgebra
[56ddb016] Logging
[d6f4376e] Markdown
[a63ad114] Mmap
[ca575930] NetworkOptions v1.2.0
[44cfe95a] Pkg v1.9.2
[de0858da] Printf
[3fa0cd96] REPL
[9a3f8284] Random
[ea8e919c] SHA v0.7.0
[9e88b42a] Serialization
[1a1011a3] SharedArrays
[6462fe0b] Sockets
[2f01184e] SparseArrays
[10745b16] Statistics v1.9.0
[4607b0f0] SuiteSparse
[fa267f1f] TOML v1.0.3
[a4e569a6] Tar v1.10.0
[8dfed614] Test
[cf7118a7] UUIDs
[4ec0a83e] Unicode
[e66e0078] CompilerSupportLibraries_jll v1.0.5+0
[deac9b47] LibCURL_jll v7.84.0+0
[29816b5a] LibSSH2_jll v1.10.2+0
[c8ffd9c3] MbedTLS_jll v2.28.2+0
[14a3606d] MozillaCACerts_jll v2022.10.11
[4536629a] OpenBLAS_jll v0.3.21+4
[05823500] OpenLibm_jll v0.8.1+0
[efcefdf7] PCRE2_jll v10.42.0+0
[bea87d4a] SuiteSparse_jll v5.10.1+6
[83775a58] Zlib_jll v1.2.13+0
[8e850b90] libblastrampoline_jll v5.8.0+0
[8e850ede] nghttp2_jll v1.48.0+0
[3f19e933] p7zip_jll v17.4.0+0
Info Packages marked with ⌃ and ⌅ have new versions available, but those with ⌅ are restricted by compatibility constraints from upgrading. To see why use `status --outdated -m`