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7 Best Practices
Experience-based "best practices" for writing netCDF files.

7.0  Overview
A body of best practices (or at least "not bad practices") has matured for netCDF classic.
7.1  Purpose of Conventions
Why are conventions needed, if we have standard formats?
7.2  Conventions
Developers should be familiar with and use existing netCDF conventions, when practical.
7.3  Coordinate Systems
Spatial and temporal location of data are supported by use of coordinate systems.
7.4  Variable Grouping
How you group data into variables can determine whether common analysis and visualization software can effectively use the data.
7.5  Variable Attributes
Conventional variable attributes supply necessary metadata.
7.6  Strings and Character Variables
Use character data properly for representing text strings.
7.7  Calendar Date and Time
Represent calendar dates and times with standards and conventions.
7.8  Packed Data Values
Conventions for packing numeric data to save space have some subtleties.
7.9  Missing Data Values
To indicate that data values are missing, invalid, or not written, special values are conventionally used.
7.10  Summary
Things to remember about netCDF best practicies.

 


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