Re: 970423: CDL files

>To: address@hidden
>cc: address@hidden
>From: address@hidden (Carrie Gonzalez)
>Subject: CDL files
>Organization: Southwest Research Institute
>Keywords: 199704232023.OAA12420
> 
> I have what may be a naive question concerning the use of netCDF.  Are
> CDL files needed?  I am coming off a task whereby we used CDF and with
> that software, we were advised it would be advantageous to create the
> ASCII skeleton files, complete with attributes but no data, then create
> the binary CDF file from that, and then simply fill in the data values.
> 
> I see you have CDL files, which are ASCII, and the two utility functions
> to go between the ASCII and the binary.  Does the approach used for CDF 
> hold true for netCDF?  Or is it simply enough to use the C functions
> to create and fill the netCDF binary file as we process?

CDL files are not necessary; you can just use C functions to create
netCDF files.  

CDL files can be convenient.  For example, the ncgen utility with a
"-c" option generates the C necessary to create a netCDF file with
structure specified by CDL.

_____________________________________________________________________

Russ Rew                                         UCAR Unidata Program
address@hidden                     http://www.unidata.ucar.edu