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Russ, A few comments. 1. General Intro First, I wanted to suggest a general comment that might be in the introduction. The HDF5 Group object is used to create a structured name spacefor a file. HDF5 provides a very generic mechanism, with very little restriction on how it can be used.
If NetCDF4 uses Groups, it will define a profile (or profiles) to specify how HDF5 Groups (and names) are used and interpreted within NetCDF4. This document presents ideas for what the profile should be. 2. RE HDF5 names HDF5 places very little restriction on path names. NetCDF4 should certainly define restrictions as needed. 3. Should there be more than one profile? This document presents several plausible approaches to using HDF5 Groups and names. Is it necessary to select only one? Or is it worth considering the possibility of multiple profiles (with the NetCDF4 software managing the differences.) From the initial document, I see several potential profiles: * netCDF3 compatibity * "multifile" file, e.g., Group == netCDF3 file - distinguished netCDF root* Hierarchical NetCDF - restricted to a tree - general graph allowed
* several possible profiles for using/interpreting path names One approach would be to define several profiles, with formatsupport to indicate what profile to use and mappings between profiles, if necessary (e.g., for netCDF3 compatibility it
is necessary to define how to interpret paths as names). The reason for considering this approach is that it would be a shame to lock in one model now, only to discover that users need something else in a few years. A multiple profile approach can be extended with new profiles in the future.
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