2007 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > Using NetCDF-4 Features, Part 2
13.0 Groups and User Defined Types in NetCDF-4
NetCDF-4 group and user defined types are powerful new netCDF-4
features.
- In netCDF-4 files, dimensions, attributes, and variables can be
organized into heirarchical groups. Each group is like its own
netCDF-3 file.
- Dimensions are inherited downward, that is, a dimension defined in
a group is visible to all sub-groups, and their sub-groups, etc.
- To scan a file with groups, a recursive function is needed.
- User-defined types may be defined in any group, and are visible
everywhere in the file.
- There are four kinds of user defined types, compound, variable
length array, enumeration, and opaque.
- A user defined type must be defined before a variable or attribute
using the type is defined.
2007 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > Using NetCDF-4 Features, Part 2