Rakesh Mithal (rakesh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) asks:
> Can the use of -2147483648 for missing value in netCDF file create
> problems on some machine?
Yes, and the situation for floating-point values is even worse, since there
is no suitable value near the edge of the floating point range that maps
into the same IEEE floating-point external representation for all platforms.
That's one of the reasons we added the special treatment of the "_FillValue"
attribute. We now recommend not using the default fill values when you need
a special value to represent missing-values. It's better to use
application-specific and application-appropriate fill values, by defining
the attribute "_FillValue" for a variable before writing it.
--Russ
