[webservices] New version of fdsnws-station (1.1.10) released with important user-level changes

[Chad Trabant]

Hello WS users,

We have updated our fdsnws-station service to version 1.1.10
http://service.iris.edu/fdsnws/station/1/

This release includes one major change for users: empty "location" 
identifiers in the results (both XML and text) are represented as an 
empty string.  Previously, metadata from the DMC's fdsnws-station 
service represented empty location identifiers as a string of two 
spaces.  More details are included in the previous announcement: 
http://www.iris.washington.edu/pipermail/webservices/2014-November/000619.html 


In addition to fixing a number of small bugs this release also uses a 
new backend database system.  There should be no meaningful content 
changes due to the database switch.  In some cases equal numerical 
values may be formatted differently, for example "-.00109707" changing 
to "-0.00109707", but most folks use a parser and will not see these 
differences.

A full list of changes is below.  This release includes a number of 
changes, which we have tested, but sometimes we miss things.  Please let 
us know as soon as possible if you notice anything wrong.

All changes in this release:

* Empty location identifiers are now represented as an empty string 
instead of a string of two spaces in the XML and text format.  This 
change is required for compliance with the FDSN StationXML specification.

* Number formatting for equal values may be different, e.g. "0.0" 
changing to "0.00000" or "-.00109707" changing to "-0.00109707".

* Virtual network associations reported via the "alternateNetworkCodes" 
of a Station element now correctly include more virtual networks in edge 
cases.

* Data availability information is now more up to date, refreshed every 
10 minutes.  Data availability information for near real-time data 
flowing into the DMC remains limited to day granularity.

* Change in header line in text output for channel-level information: 
the column previously labeled as "Instrument" is now 
"SensorDescription".  Warning: we will very likely be adding more header 
lines in the future (prefixed with the comment indicator '#'), anyone 
parsing this text should keep this in mind.

* The limit of the number of channels that may be retrieved at the 
response level has been increased to 120,000 (from 20,000).

* Error estimates for all digital filter values in response data are 
included when they exist.

* Fix a bug returning internal service errors (HTTP 500) when no 
denominators of a digital filter are present.

regards,
IRIS DMC