The netCDF-3 C interface provides portability, performance, and reliability.

• Well-documented: The netCDF C Users Guide is complete and up-to-date, and reference documentation is maintained in man-page form.
• Comprehensively tested: A large number of tests are run when the netCDF C library is installed from source.
• Good support: Since the Unidata developers use the C interface and provide support for it, answers for many support questions are already available.
• Many users: The C interface is one of the most widely used netCDF interfaces.
• Supported by ncgen utility: The ncgen utility, given a CDL file, can generate the C code needed to create the file. This is a currently a significant advantage of using the C interface, if you want to avoid writing the boilerplate code to create files with lots of variables and attributes.
• OPeNDAP capable: By installing OPeNDAP and relinking C applications with the OPeNDAP client library, access to data on OPeNDAP servers is available.

• Memory handling and garbage collection: You have to provide memory space for any netCDF data values and attribute values you read.
• Error handling: The status of every function call must be checked, which detracts from code clarity.
• Lacks advanced features of the netCDF Java interface.

Annotated examples of complete C netCDF programs are available from the program examples page.

2007 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > NetCDF APIs