Re: netCDF - char attributes

["R.Bauer" <R.Bauer(at)fz-juelich.de>]

Martin Schultz wrote:

> Hi again,
>
>   Liam has prompted me to take a look into netCDF, and I must say, it's
> easier than I thought.
> (So far) I just got one question: If I store a string attribute (e.g.
> units), IDL's
> NCDF_AttPut routine internally converts it to BYTE no mater whether I
> set the /CHAR flag or not. In the example that they provide, they force
> the output to be a string saying one would need to do this to convert
> from BYTE. But does this mean that the CHAR type is not supported? Or am
> I missing something here?
>

Hi Martin,

I believe the /CHAR type isn't supported as CHAR only as BYTE.
We have a lot of experience with Fortran and C netCDF. All are using BYTE.

This means if you will write a parameter as string you have to define 2
Dimensions.
(string_length X n_elements()).

You should have a look at the unidata netCDF homepage because IDL has only
Version netCDF 2.4.

 http://www.unidata.ucar.edu

The actualy version is 3.4. If you don't use netCDF 3.4 patches you will got in
trouble reading not
alphanumerical signs like -()+*. and so on  in the shortname. netCDF 2.4 is able
to write those.


We have already done a lot of definitions  for describing a dataset with netCDF
Attributes.

regards

Rei


P.S

Hallo Martin,
netCDF gefällt mir ziemlich gut und in dem netCDF Forum wurde auch schon mal eine
komprimierende Version diskutiert.





















>
> Thanks,
> Martin.
>
> --
>
> |||||||||||||||\\\\\\\\\\\\\-------------------///////////////|||||||||||||||
> Martin Schultz, DEAS, Harvard University, 29 Oxford St., Pierce 109,
> Cambridge, MA 02138          phone (617) 496 8318   fax (617) 495 4551
> e-mail mgs@io.harvard.edu    web http://www-as/people/staff/mgs/