The following requirements are extracted from the NetCDF-4.0 Requirements document.

Useful examples should be:

• designed to demonstrate features of netCDF
• each contained in a single file of source code
• written to include reasonable error handling
• as brief as good coding style permits
• well-commented
• able to be built and run as one make target ("make check")
• portable, for compiling and running on all supported netCDF platforms
• provided in at least C, F77, F90, and C++
• independent from other examples, except possibly through a common data file

In addition, examples that illustrate netCDF features in realistic ways as used by the Earth Science community are also desired.

2011 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Introduction to the NetCDF APIs and Example Programs