Developing general tools that can handle arbitrary netCDF data, such as ncdump, ncgen, and nccopy, demonstrated the adequacy of the APIs and some shortcomings.
A netCDF tool is generic if it can handle arbitrary netCDF variables of
The enhanced data model for netCDF-4 adds arbitrarily nested groups and user-defined data types that may be nested, leading to an unlimited variety of types.
| 25.0 |
Issues in Writing Generic NetCDF Software
There are several issues to be aware of in writing software designed to read arbitrary netCDF data. |
| 25.1 |
Of what use is a utility to copy netCDF files?
There are already utility programs to copy files, for example the Unix "cp" command. |
| 25.2 |
Lessons learned from developing nccopy
Was anything useful learned in developing the generic netCDF program nccopy? |
| 25.3 |
The Problem
How can you write code to process all the values of any multidimensional variable? |
| 25.4 |
A Solution
The nccopy utility solves this problem with iterators, implemented in C. |
| 25.5 |
Benefits of Iterators
Use of an iterator simplifies the code and makes it general. |