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2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers

8 Best Practices
Experience-based "best practices" for writing netCDF files.

Covering this subject comprehensively requires more than a brief workshop session, unfortunately. For more details, please see the web document Writing NetCDF Files: Best Practices or the June 2007 Unidata Seminar presentation "Writing NetCDF Files: Best Practices".

8.0  Conventions
Developers should be familiar with and use existing netCDF conventions, when practical.
8.1  Coordinate Systems
Spatial and temporal location of data are supported by use of coordinate systems.
8.2  Variable Grouping
How you group data into variables can determine whether common analysis and visualization software can effectively use the data.
8.3  Variable Attributes
Conventional variable attributes supply necessary metadata.
8.4  Strings and Character Variables
Use character data properly for representing text strings.
8.5  Calendar Date and Time
Represent calendar dates and times with standards and conventions.
8.6  Packed Data Values
Conventions for packing numeric data to save space have some subtleties.
8.7  Missing Data Values
To indicate that data values are missing, invalid, or not written, special values are conventionally used.

 


Previous: Issues for Discussion Next: Conventions Table of contents Frames User guide
2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers