each patch / column / landunit type index should have unique meaning

**Bill Sacks < sacks@ucar.edu > - 2015-09-18 12:30:09 -0600**
**Bugzilla Id:** [2218](http://bugz.cgd.ucar.edu/show_bug.cgi?id=2218)
**Bugzilla CC:** andre@ucar.edu, dlawren@ucar.edu, mvertens@ucar.edu, rfisher@ucar.edu,

I feel that each patch / column / landunit type index should have unique meaning. For example, we currently use noveg (0) for the patch type for the bare ground patch on the natural veg landunit, as well as for all patches on special landunits. For column index, I think we're doing pretty well now, although we should confirm that there aren't any indices that are used on multiple landunits.

This would help in two ways:

(1) It would make it easier to process the 1-d (vector) history output

(2) It would allow for more straightforward logic in initInterp. For example, when checking is_sametype for patches, we could just check whether the patch type is the same, without having to also check the column and landunit type - because an identical patch type would imply identical column and landunit type, too. (In the case of generic crop, which can appear on either the natural veg landunit or the crop landunit, identical patch type doesn't imply identical col/landunit type, but in that case, that's what we want: i.e., we just want to find the same patch type without regards for what landunit type it's on.)