2010 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Using Groups and NetCDF-4 Types
22.4 Strings
The String type can replace character arrays for most purposes.
- Strings are accessed atomically.
- Arrays of strings of different lengths do not waste space.
- An array of strings can represent multi-line text without using
embedded newline characters.
- As a special case of VLEN (a variable length object), string
data must be explicitly freed after use.
- Use of strings rather than character arrays requires netCDF-4
format (can't use netCDF-4 classic model format).
2010 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Using Groups and NetCDF-4 Types