Showing just the header (also known as "metadata" or "schema"):
$ ncdump -h mslp.ncoutput
To look at header and coordinate information, but not the data:
$ ncdump -c mslp.ncoutput
To look at all the data in the file, in addition to the metadata:
$ ncdump mslp.ncoutput
To look at a subset of the data by specifying one or more variables:
$ ncdump -v lat,time mslp.ncoutput
To see times in human-readable form:
$ ncdump -t -v lat,time mslp.ncoutput
To look at what kind of netCDF data is in the file (classic, 64-bit offset, netCDF-4, or netCDF-4 classic model):
$ ncdump -k mslp.nc
classic