2010 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Using Groups and NetCDF-4 Types
22.17 Variable-Length Types
Variable-length types provide support for ragged arrays.
- A variable-length ("VLEN") type has a name and a base type.
- VLENs may be of any base type, including user-defined types.
- VLENS may be nested to create multidimensional variable-length types
- Access to a variable-length value is atomic:
- The length and values are written or read together.
- You can't determine length until a value is read.
- Accessing and manipulating VLENs is possible but problematic in
Fortran 77 and Fortran 90.
2010 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Using Groups and NetCDF-4 Types