• Well-documented: The netCDF Fortran-77 Users Guide is complete and up-to-date, and reference documentation is maintained in man-page form.
• Comprehensively tested: A large number of tests are run when the netCDF Fortran-77 library is installed from source.
• Support by ncgen utility: The ncgen utility, given a CDL file, can generate the Fortran-77 code needed to create the file. This helps, if you want to avoid writing the boilerplate code to create files with lots of variables and attributes. (However, the generated ncgen code is awkward for record variables of type character.)
• Support for netCDF-4: the F77 API supports the extended data model of netCDF-4 (but using some advanced features may make your code unportable.)

• Uses character arrays as a substitute for strings, so user must be aware of string lengths.
• Fortran's column-major subscript order is different from CDL's row-major order, whcih can make ncdump's CDL output confusing.
• Memory handling: You have to provide memory space for any netCDF data values and attribute values you read.
• Error handling: The status of every function call must be checked, which detracts from code clarity.

• Implemented as a thin layer on top of the C netCDF library.

Annotated examples of complete Fortran77 netCDF programs are available from the program examples page.

2009 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > NetCDF APIs