Section: 11 Introduction to NetCDF-4

11.0	The NetCDF-4 Data Model The netCDF-4 data model adds Groups and User-Defined Types to the classic netCDF data model, but backward compatibility is preserved.
11.1	NetCDF-4 Features Features of netCDF-4 address netCDF-3 limitations.
11.2	Compatibility of NetCDF-4 NetCDF-4 provides both format and API compatibility with netCDF-3.
11.3	Strings The String type can replace character arrays for most purposes.
11.4	Additional Numeric Types New primitive types include 64-bit integers and unsigned integer types.
11.5	Unicode Names Use of Unicode in names provides better support for international uses.
11.6	Groups Groups provide a scope for names and a scalable way to organize data objects.
11.7	Multiple Unlimited Dimensions Multiple unlimited dimensions let variables grow along multiple axes.
11.8	Compound Types Compound types provide a portable version of C structs.
11.9	Enumerations Enumerations can provide named flag values for improving self-description
11.10	Variable-Length Types Variable-Length types provide support for ragged arrays.
11.11	NetCDF-4 Performance Improvements NetCDF-4 uses HDF5 for its storage layer, which provides several ways to improve performance, even for netCDF-3 programs.
11.12	Chunking Chunked storage can provide significant performance benefits
11.13	Compression Per-variable compression means variables may be compressed independently.
11.14	Ample Variable Sizes Most constraints on variable size are eliminated in netCDF-4.
11.15	Efficient Dynamic Schema Changes In netCDF-4, it is possible to efficiently add new metadata
11.16	Parallel I/O Parallel I/O exploits parallel file systems on high-performance computing platforms.
11.17	Reader Makes Right Conversions The use of a "reader makes right" approach avoids many data conversions.
11.18	NetCDF-4 Status NetCDF-4 beta is currently available for testing.