2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > The "Classic" NetCDF Data Model
3.5 NetCDF Files
NetCDF files are containers for Dimensions,
Variables, and Global Attributes.
A netCDF file has a path name and possibly
some dimensions, variables, global (file-level) attributes, and data
values associated with the variables. Sometimes we refer to netCDF
files more abstractly as datasets.
Operations
Operations supported on netCDF files include:
- Create a new file, given its path name and whether to
overwrite or not.
- Open an existing file for access, given dataset name and read or write intent.
- Put into define mode to add dimensions, variables, or attributes.
- Take out of define mode, checking consistency of additions.
- Close, writing to disk if required.
- Get the number of dimensions.
- Get the number of variables.
- Get the number of global attributes.
- Get the unlimited dimension, if any.
- Synchronize to disk to make sure file matches memory.
- Set and unset no fill mode for optimized sequential writes.
2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > The "Classic" NetCDF Data Model
