Introduction

Unidata - To provide the data services, tools, and cyberinfrastructure leadership that advance Earth system science, enhance educational opportunities, and broaden participation.

DataToolsCommunityDownloadsSupportProjectsAbout Us

•

Next: NetCDF Classes, Previous: Top, Up: Top

The main requirements for the design of the C++ interface are:

to provide the functionality of the C interface;
to provide type safety by eliminating all use of void* pointers; and
to provide an interface that is simpler to use than the C interface.

Some of the features of the C++ interface are:

No IDs needed for netCDF's variables, dimensions, or attributes.
No explicit open or close calls needed for netCDF files; a constructor opens and a destructor closes a file.
No need to specify types for creating attributes; they will have the type of the value provided.
No use of void*: values are type-checked.
Less indirection is needed for dimensions & dimension sizes than with the C interface. A variable's dimensions can be provided as arguments when defining a variable.
Code for data types is isolated to make the addition of new types easier.
No explicit ncredef or ncendef calls are needed for switching between define and data modes. Whenever a mode switch is required, it happens implicitly.

The header file netcdfcpp.h must be included in source code files using this interface.

This release provides the functionality of netCDF version 4.0.

This manual assumes familiarity with Chapters 1 through 4 of the netCDF User's Guide, where the concepts of netCDF dimensions, variables, and attributes are discussed.

				Unidata is a member of the UCAR Office of Programs, is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
				P.O. Box 3000 • Boulder, CO 80307-3000 USA • Tel: 303-497-8643 • Fax: 303-497-8690