Re: How to associate attributes with fields in netCDF-4 compound types?

• To: netcdf-hdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: How to associate attributes with fields in netCDF-4 compound types?
• From: Ed Hartnett <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:38:07 -0700

Simon Wood <simon.wood@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Hi Ed,
>
>> How about a function like this:
>> EXTERNL int
>> nc_def_compound_att(int ncid, nc_type compound_typeid, char *att_name,
>>                         nc_type att_base_typeid, nc_type
>>                         *att_typeidp);
>> This could construct a new compound type, suitable for use as such an
>> attribute. For example, after defining come compound type cmp_typeid,
>> you could create the type for a "units" attribute like this:
>> nc_def_compound_att(ncid, cmp_typeid, "units", NC_CHAR,
>> units_att_typeid);
>> If you passed a base type of NC_NAT, the compound attribute type
>> could
>> use the same type as each field in the compound type. So you could get
>> a _FillValue type like this:
>> nc_def_compound_att(ncid, cmp_typeid, "_FillValue", NC_NAT,
>> fill_att_typeid);
>>
>
> Maybe I'm not following this quite right, but this doesn't seem to do
> quite the same thing as Russ's previous suggestion / example.  In his
> example Russ defined a single compound attribute type for string
> attributes ('compound obs_atts') and then used this as the type for
> two different compound attributes ('obs_atts obs_var:units' &
> 'obs_atts obs_var:standard_name'), whereas it looks like this function
> would create distinct types for each compound attribute.

Yep.

>
> I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, I really haven't
> thought enough about it (and don't yet feel I have enough experience
> with the whole netCDF way of doing things to hold strong opinions on
> how it should be ;-), although I did quite like Russ's original
> proposal for its simplicity.
>
> I certainly think adding an API function to do something like this is
> a good idea, though.

Well, no one in the netCDF community has had experience with netCDF
groups yet, so we are all learning as we go...

Ed

-- 
Ed Hartnett  -- ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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• References:
  • Re: How to associate attributes with fields in netCDF-4 compound types?
    • From: Russ Rew
  • Re: How to associate attributes with fields in netCDF-4 compound types?
    • From: Simon Wood
  • Re: How to associate attributes with fields in netCDF-4 compound types?
    • From: Ed Hartnett
  • Re: How to associate attributes with fields in netCDF-4 compound types?
    • From: Simon Wood