Due to the current gap in continued funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the NSF Unidata Program Center has temporarily paused most operations. See NSF Unidata Pause in Most Operations for details.

Network Common Data Form (NetCDF)

Network Common Data Form (NetCDF)

NetCDF NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) is a set of software libraries and machine-independent data formats that support the creation, access, and sharing of array-oriented scientific data. It is also a community standard for sharing scientific data. The Unidata Program Center supports and maintains netCDF programming interfaces for C, C++, Java, and Fortran. Programming interfaces are also available for Python, IDL, MATLAB, R, Ruby, and Perl.

Data in netCDF format is:

  • Self-Describing. A netCDF file includes information about the data it contains.
  • Portable. A netCDF file can be accessed by computers with different ways of storing integers, characters, and floating-point numbers.
  • Scalable. Small subsets of large datasets in various formats may be accessed efficiently through netCDF interfaces, even from remote servers.
  • Appendable. Data may be appended to a properly structured netCDF file without copying the dataset or redefining its structure.
  • Sharable. One writer and multiple readers may simultaneously access the same netCDF file.
  • Archivable. Access to all earlier forms of netCDF data will be supported by current and future versions of the software.
See the netCDF package overview

NetCDF Support

How To Get NetCDF Support

Didn't find a solution in the netCDF documentation? Try the following:

Check the FAQ, which provides answers to many Frequently Asked Questions
Request Support from Unidata developers at the appropriate email address: support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu (for C-based netCDF libraries or utilities) or support-netcdf-java@unidata.ucar.edu (for NetCDF Java)
View Current Support Questions being asked of the netCDF developers
Use the NetCDF Group Mailing List to query experts in the Unidata community

Note: Much netCDF support is about installing on new combinations of platforms, compilers, and settings. If we don't have the platform or compiler required to reproduce the problem, we may not be able to provide much help.

For NetCDF Developers

NetCDF is an Open Source project led by developers at the Unidata Program Center. If you're interested in contributing to the project, you might be interested in these resources: