[netCDF #YUI-809780]: CF proposed point obs convention

Hi Bruce,

Sorry it has taken so long to respond to your question.

The C user's guide for netCDF is out-of-date with respect to what characters
are valid
in names, at least in the description of names used in arguments for the API
functions
dealing with attributes.  Characters such as ":" are permitted in netCDF
attribute names
in versions 3.6.3 and later, as described in the part of the netCDF users guide
that
documents the file format:

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/docs/netcdf.html#NetCDF-Classic-Format

Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy in the documentation.  I will fix that
in the next
release.

There is another issue you will encounter: the proposed convention for point
observations
is not yet approved for CF.  CF still only permits alphanumeric names with the
addition of the
underscore '_' character, so that restriction will also have to be lifted
before the point
observation conventions in their current form, with ':' used in names, are
approved.  But
I expect that not to be a contentious issue.

--Russ




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



Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: YUI-809780
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed