Are There Best Practices for Developing New NetCDF Conventions?

[Mark Ohrenschall <Mark.A.Ohrenschall@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

We are developing CF compliant netCDF files with additional (or 
"optional") metadata in the netCDF header from our own sources, e.g., a 
subset of the FGDC metadata content standard, our Rich Inventory 
database, etc... Our sources are potentially new, additional netCDF 
conventions, and so our essential question is if there is a best 
practices guide for netCDF convention developers, especially so that 
various conventions do not clash or conflict with each other.

For example, if we are free to name our new, homemade netCDF attributes 
however we like, could those attribute names conflict with existing or 
future netCDF conventions? Is there any mechanism for indicating which 
convention(s) a netCDF attribute complies with? Is there a namespace 
mechanism so that if two conventions use the same name for an attribute, 
that attribute can be disambiguated?

We're also wondering what to do for those attributes which serve both 
the CF convention and our own FGDC (or others) convention. For the sake 
of netCDF software that is looking for CF attributes we'd have to name 
such a common attribute using its CF name, but what if we also wanted to 
ensure that that common attribute remained associated with its FGDC 
siblings? (E.g., suppose we wanted to extract all FGDC attributes from 
the netCDF header?) Do we then need to define that attribute twice, once 
with its CF name and once with its FGDC name?

So we are wondering what the netCDF conventions community thinks about 
these considerations, and any advice or experience they may offer us on 
how to add our own attributes to a netCDF file in a coherent way that is 
harmonious with other, existing conventions.

Thank you -- Mark

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