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Bastian Graupner <address@hidden> writes: > Hello Ed, > > I am working with netCDF 3.6.1. > > To store data I created a dimension "parameter" with the length of 3 > for example. To avoid confusion between the parameters I want to use > names instead of numbers by defining a coordinate variable. But if I > declare the variable as CHAR I can't give a array of strings to the > variable as it is possible for integers or floats. But if I want 3 > names for 3 parameters it is necessary to give an array to the > variable. > > Is there a possibility to solve this problem? > > Thank you for your help. > > P.S. We have sunny and warm weather that doesn't make it easy to sit > in an office! > > Bastian Howdy Bastian! I am shortly going to go out and enjoy the weather on my bike, but meanwhile, let me try and answer some of your questions. Do you have a good understanding of the netCDF data model? (Variables, attributes, dimensions, and all that...) If not, you may wish to see: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/docs/netcdf/The-NetCDF-Data-Model.html As you note, you cannot store arrays of strings in NC_CHAR, only arrays of char. If you want to store strings, what you can do is find your max string length and store a 2D array of NC_CHAR, with the max string length being one of the two dimensions. For more on strings and other important topics, see the best practices page: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/docs/BestPractices.html Please let me know if this helped. Thanks! Ed -- Ed Hartnett -- address@hidden