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[netCDF #HGQ-329307]: Does A netCDF4 "File Information" Program Exist?

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  • Subject: [netCDF #HGQ-329307]: Does A netCDF4 "File Information" Program Exist?
  • Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:35:52 -0600
Hi Tony,

> I'm searching for a C program that gathers information about netCDF4
> files.  This C program knows nothing about the particular netCDF4 file
> it's reading and therefore must make inquiries to the file to find out
> the number of groups/sub-groups, dimensions, variables, attributes it
> contains, the names of all the above, the variable shapes, etc.  My
> question: Does such a C program exist?  Can you tell me where I can
> download it?  If it does not exist I will take a crack at writing one.
> I've been searching online but so far haven't found anything.

The two utilities "ncdump" and "nccopy" both gather all that information.
"ncdump -h" outputs just the metadata information in CDL, a small language
for representing netCDF data in text form.  If you have netCDF installed,
the ncdump man page shows all the options.

The nccopy utility makes a copy of a netCDF-4 file using only the netCDF-4 
API, so it also has to inquire about everything.  It might be easiest to
modify nccopy source to just report what you want.

--Russ

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



Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: HGQ-329307
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed