[netCDF #TOM-306249]: Byte stream dump of netcdf file

Hi Andrew,

There are not any tools I am aware of (off the top of my head) that will 
provide this sort of information "off-the-shelf".   It could be done 
programmatically, perhaps,  but it would be quite a bit of effort.  

There are a few confounding factors; for example, variable/dimension/file ID's 
are not guaranteed to remain the same each time a file is open.  Additionally, 
the file architecture is completely different depending on whether you are 
working with netCDF3 or netCDF4 files.  NetCDF4 files will be particularly 
tricky, as they support chunking (using arbitrary chunk sizes) and per-variable 
compression.  The compression schemes may also vary, currently between either 
szip or gzip.  

The ncdump utility will let you extract information from a netCDF file in a 
highly-configurable way; you can extract information for specific variables, 
just the header information, etc. You might also find something helpful in the 
NetCDF Operators (NCO) package found at http://nco.sourceforge.net/, but this 
is not something which we maintain.  

I'm sorry I can't provide a more directly useful reply,

-Ward

> Hello,
> 
> I was referred to this email address by Ryan May.
> 
> Do you know how to get a byte stream dump of a netcdf file? Preferably via 
> Python if doable. By byte stream dump I mean a byte level arrangement of 
> netcdf file. This includes header information (Tag and Length), variable IDs 
> and their associated values.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Andrew Joros
> Assistant Research Scientist
> Applied Innovation Center
> Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences
> Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway Reno, NV 89523
> Office: 775.674.7112
> 
> 

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: TOM-306249
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed