[Support #LTQ-105205]: ncBrowse on HDF5 file?

Hi Angie,

> 1) If I create an HDF5 file correctly (with all the necessary setup for
> netCDF) will ncBrowse be able to read the file?

No, I don't believe so.  ncBrowse was not developed at Unidata, so we don't
support or maintain it, but from what I can see on the Web site:

  http://www.epic.noaa.gov/java/ncBrowse/

it was last updated in 2006, and is based on an older version of Unidata's
netCDF-Java software before it could read netCDF-4 data.  So I doubt that
ncBrowse will know what to do with a netCDF-4 HDF5 file.  You could verify
whether this is true by testing it on a simple example netCDF-4 HDF5 file, 
such as:

   http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/examples/simple_xy_nc4.nc

which is a netCDF-4 file corresponding to the following CDL:

   http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/examples/simple_xy.cdl

> 2) Do you have any example code of ALL of the HDF5 functions that must
> be called in order to make an HDF5 file readable by netCDF?

There is a description of the netCDF-4 format in terms of HDF5 from
which it should be practical to see how to make an HDF5 file readable
by HDF5 here:

  
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/docs_snapshot/netcdf.html#NetCDF_002d4-Format

But note that you can also read some HDF5 files directly using netCDF-4
version 4.1, as documented in section "C.3.4 Dimensions without HDF5 Dimension 
Scales" of the above appendix.  Also in version 4.1 is the ability to read HDF4
SD files directly from the netCDF-4 API, as documented in the same appendix.

These capabilities are available in the current netCDF-4.1.1 release candidate 
software:

  ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/netcdf-4.1.1-rc2.tar.gz

and will be in the 4.1.1 release when it is available, soon we hope.

--Russ

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



Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: LTQ-105205
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed