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The Unidata netCDF group is pleased to announce the 4.2 release of the netCDF C library.

C Library

This release contains performance enhancements, bug fixes, a few new features in utilities, and internal refactoring. It is designed to be compatible with existing netCDF data and software.

For additional details, please see the NetCDF 4.2 Release Notes.

Users of Fortran or C++ interfaces please note

In previous releases, the C, C++, and Fortran libraries have been bundled into a single release package. Beginning with version 4.2, the three libraries are being released as separate packages. Separating the libraries allows the development team to update any of the three independently of the others; this in turn will allow us to make language-specific updates without requiring users to update their environments for features they may not use. Additionally, the separation reduces our maintenance costs by making our build systems simpler.

Note that while the three libraries are now built and packaged separately, you must have the C library installed before building either the C++ or Fortran libraries.

The latest Fortran and C++ libraries as well as the 4.2 release of the C library are available from the netCDF Downloads page:

https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/netcdf/

Please send feedback on any of the libraries to support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu. You can also follow NetCDF development activities and submit issue reports on Unidata's Jira site.

C++ Libraries

The netCDF-4 C++ library was contributed by user Lynton Appel, of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in Oxfordshire, UK. (Thanks Lynton!) This new C++ API allows full use of the netCDF-4 enhanced model, as well as the classic model and formats.

To see the release notes and download the source code for the netCDF-4 C++ library, see the NetCDF-4 C++ Library 4.2 Release Notes.

A legacy C++ API is provided for backward compatibility. It was developed before key C++ concepts like templates and namespaces were widely supported. It should not be used for new C++ development projects.

To see the release notes and download the source code for the netCDF legacy C++ library, see the NetCDF Legacy C++ Library 4.2 Release Notes.

Both of these libraries require that the netCDF C library already be installed.

Fortran Libraries

The netCDF-4 Fortran libraries include the Fortran 77 API (plus the legacy V2 Fortran 77 API), and the Fortran 90 API.

Other than the separation from the C libraries, there are only very minor changes to the Fortran libraries since the 4.1.3 release.

To see the release notes and download the source code for the netCDF Fortran library, see the NetCDF Fortran Library 4.2 Release Notes.

To build the netcdf-fortran libraries, the netCDF C library must already be installed.

User Richard Weed has recently implemented use of a new Fortran-2003 interoperability standard for calling C libraries from Fortran to solve previously irksome portability problems for developers and users of the Fortran netCDF libraries, allowing use of different Fortran compilers with the same C library. The new beta-release netCDF Fortran library is available from the netCDF Downloads page. For more information, see this netcdfgroup list message.

Windows users note

Ward Fisher, a new Unidata netCDF developer, has recently joined our group. His initial focus will be helping to improve netCDF support for Windows platforms. We hope to report success in making netCDF more useful to Windows users and developers over the next few months.