The ncgen has options to specify what kind of output to generate.
ncgen [-b] [-o netcdf_filename] [-k file_format] [-l output_language]
[-x] cdl_file
[-b] binary output as a netCDF file, uses .nc extension on input
[-o filename] like -b except output netCDF to specified filename
[-k] kind of netCDF file
[-l c|f77|java] language of program generated to standard output
[-x] don't write fill values for missing data in output
cdl_file name of input CDL file