NetCDF Utilities

Use of ncdump and ncgen together can accomplish some simple data management tasks. Format conversion, remote access, compression, and rechunking data for faster access are possible with nccopy. Compiling and linking programs that use netCDF C-based libraries is easier with nc-config.

6.0	CDL CDL (Common Data form Language), as previously mentioned, is a human-readable text representation of netCDF data.
6.1	ncdump The ncdump command-line utility converts netCDF data to human-readable text form.
6.2	Examples of ncdump use Common uses for ncdump include:
6.3	ncgen From a CDL text file input, the ncgen command-line utility can generate a binary netCDF file, or a program to generate the netCDF file.
6.4	Examples of ncgen use Examples of common uses of ncgen
6.5	ncdump and ncgen together Used together, ncdump and ncgen can accomplish simple netCDF manipulations with little or no programming.
6.6	nccopy The nccopy command-line utility copies and optionally compresses and chunks netCDF data.
6.7	Examples of nccopy use Examples of common uses of nccopy
6.8	Common Data Model utilities The netCDF-Java package includes some additional useful utilities.
6.9	nc-config The nc-config command-line utility assists with the setting of compiler and linker flags for building applications.
6.10	Unicode Names The netCDF library and utilities permit Unicode names for netCDF objects, such as Dimensions, Variables, and Attributes:
6.11	Other NetCDF Utilities Many other useful netCDF utilities developed by third parties are available, for example NCL, NCO, and CDO packages. The Java ToolsUI utility is described in the netCDF Java session.