The only netCDF utilities that are installed by default are ncdump and ncgen. (ncgen4 is an optional replacement for ncgen.)
Use of ncdump and ncgen together can accomplish some simple data management tasks.
| 5.0 |
CDL
CDL (Common Data form Language): a human-readable text representation of netCDF data. |
| 5.1 |
ncdump
The ncdump command-line utility converts netCDF data to human-readable form. |
| 5.2 |
Header Information
To look at just the header information (also called the schema or metadata): |
| 5.3 |
Coordinate values with header information
To look at just the header and coordinate information: |
| 5.4 |
All the data
To look at all the data in the file, in addition to the header data: |
| 5.5 |
Annotate values by index
To look at data values annotated with array indices: |
| 5.6 |
Data for a few specified variables
To look at a subset of the data by specifying one or more variables: |
| 5.7 |
Human-readable times
To see times in human-readable form: |
| 5.8 |
Kind of netCDF data
To determine which variant of the netCDF format is used: |
| 5.9 |
ncgen
ncgen can generate a netCDF file, C program, or Fortran program from a CDL file. |
| 5.10 |
ncdump and ncgen together
Used together, ncdump and ncgen can accomplish simple netCDF manipulations with little or no programming. |
| 5.11 |
Unicode Names
The netCDF library and utilities in versions 3.6.3 and later permit Unicode names for netCDF objects. |
| 5.12 |
NcML
NcML (netCDF Markup Language) is a dialect of XML for representing netCDF data, for virtual netCDF files, and for virtual aggregations. |
| 5.13 |
Special attributes for netCDF-4 data
To display new characterisitics of netCDF-4 data, such as compression and chunking: |
| 5.14 |
Other NetCDF Utilities
Many other useful netCDF utilities developed by third parties are available. NCL, NCO, and CDO packages are described in later sessions. The Java ToolsUI utility is described in the netCDF Java session. |