Hi Chris,
> What is the community convention for filename suffix for netCDF-4 files: .nc
> , .nc4, .h5?
We encourage just using ".nc", but as you've indicated, it's only a
convention. The FAQ says:
Why aren't different extensions used for the different formats, for
example ".nc3" and ".nc4"?
The file extension used for netCDF files is purely a convention. The
netCDF libraries don't use the file extension. A user can currently
create a netCDF file with any extension, even one not consistent with
the format of the file.
The ncgen utility uses ".nc" as a default extension for output, but
this can be overridden using the "-o" option to specify the name for
the output file. Recent versions of ncgen also have a "-k" option to
specify what kind of output file is desired, selecting any of the 4
format variants, using either a numeric code or a text string. Most
other netCDF client software pays no attention to the file extension,
so using more explicit extensions by convention has no significant
drawbacks, except possibly causing confusion about format differences
that may not be important.
--Russ
