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[Fwd: Re: [Fwd: Re: IllegalArgumentException with addVariableAttribute]]

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  • Subject: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: Re: IllegalArgumentException with addVariableAttribute]]
  • Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 08:50:06 -0600
another answer from Russ Rew:

> I can't help but wonder why arrays of numbers are allowed, but not strings -- 
it
> seems that strings are
> the more obvious usage for attribute values.


A property of netCDF data is that a file created by the interface in
one language, for example Java, should be readable by the API of any
other language, for example Fortran-77.  The latter language doesn't
actually support variable-length strings, so it's difficult to write
an API for Fortran-77 that could deal with attributes that were arrays
of variable-length strings.

Many of the netCDF's limitations derive from the requirement that
Fortran-77 programs must be able to read all netCDF datasets.

--Russ