[no subject]

Bob,

>      This is a clarification to your e-mail regarding 
> the confusion over the generation of lines such as:
> 
>        float  latitude(latitude);
>        int    woce_date(woce_date);
>        char   pcode(pcode_no, strlen10);
>        float  temperature(time,pressure, latitude,longitude);
> 
>     In my question I should have said that the above lines were 
> from a generation of CDL from an existing binary netCDF file by "ncdump",
> and, that I am attempting to do this in a Java program.  I have
> done this by the command "System.out.println( nc )", but I would like
> to know how this can be done by individul Java commands.

OK, thanks, now I understand the question.

Assume you have a ucar.netcdf.Variable ncvar that you got from the
getVariableIterator() method of NetcdfFile, for example.

To get its type, use 

  ncvar.getComponentType()

which returns a Class whose toString() method can be used for the type
string.

To get its dimensions, use a dimension iterator:

  ucar.netcdf.DimensionIterator iter=ncvar.getDimensionIterator();

To get the name for each dimension, use its getName() method:

  iter.next().getName()

This is all done in a private method in the source for
ucar.nc2.Variable:

  private void getFullNameN(StringBuffer buf) {
    buf.append(ncvar.getComponentType());
    buf.append(" ");
    buf.append(ncvar.getName());
    buf.append("(");
    ucar.netcdf.DimensionIterator iter=ncvar.getDimensionIterator();
    while( iter.hasNext()) {
      buf.append( iter.next().getName() );
      if(!iter.hasNext())
        break;
      buf.append(",");
    }
    buf.append(")");
  }
 
--Russ