5.5 Compound Types Introduction
NetCDF-4 added support for compound types, which allow users to
construct a new type - a combination of other types, like a C struct.
Compound types are not supported in classic or 64-bit offset format
files.
To write data in a compound type, first use nc_def_compound to create the
type, multiple calls to nc_insert_compound to add to the compound type, and
then write data with the appropriate nc_put_var1, nc_put_vara,
nc_put_vars, or nc_put_varm call.
To read data written in a compound type, you must know its
structure. Use the nc_inq_compound functions to learn about the compound
type.
