Re: Strings (was: Re: HDF5 bitfields...)

• To: netcdf-hdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: Strings (was: Re: HDF5 bitfields...)
• From: Quincey Koziol <koziol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:47:06 -0500 (CDT)

Hi Ed,

> Quincey Koziol <koziol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> > Hi Ed,
> > 
> > > > You may also wish to refer to the H5 user's guide,
> > > > 
> > > >    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/doc/UG/
> > > > 
> > > > and there is a tutorial program at:
> > > > 
> > > >    
> > > > http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/training/other-ex5/sample-programs/StringOpaque.html
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Excellent! Looks to me like we can use the H5T_NATIVE_CHAR type for
> > > strings and HDF5 will provide everything we need. 
> > > 
> > > One question: you guys can handle n-dimensional arrays of strings -
> > > for example a 3 dimensional array of strings? And use the space
> > > manipulation functions to define the dimensions, all in the usual HDF5
> > > way?
> >     Yep.  You can have any combination of dataspace and datatype that you'd
> > like.  (a 17 dimensional space of variable-length sequences of arrays of
> > strings, etc... :-)
> > 
> >     Quincey
> 
> Excellent!
> 
> Do you allow any conversion to other types? I expect not...
    Not currently.  (I expect its only a matter of time before we are asked
to support this though... :-)

        Quincey

> Russ and John, are we going to say that not all types are convertible
> in netCDF? At this moment, any type can be converted into any other,
> but are we going to try that with string? Doesn't seem to make much
> sense...
> 
> Ed
>