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NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
Current content can be found at unidata.ucar.edu.
To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
Rich Lysakowski writes: > I wish we had a mechanism beyond conventions for grouping multiple > netCDF file objects into more complex objects that could be mailed/copied > around the network (a directory type structure would be fine for now). > Tarring files together doesn't let you access what's in the files easily. > Does anyone have a better approach now? Our Envision software project addresses multiple file problems for a data set by defining "projects" which describe variables and dimensions that are divided over multiple files. It works by letting the user specify which variables and dimensions correspond in the various files. Once defined in a project, these "logical" objects can then be accessed as if they were in a single file. Other dimensions may be implied by the division of the data into files, such as when each file represents one time measurement. In this case, the time dimension may be defined only by a unique file name, e.g. 28Oct1400Z.cdf. Our logic allows a "virtual" dimension to be defined like other logical dimensions. This allows the user to select time ranges over multiple files, even when no time dimension is stored with the data. The multiple file issue is really just higher-level metadata management and it requires only one project file to store this new metadata. The netcdf files themselves are unaffected. With this approach, users are free to use any conventions they please, but can still manage a segmented data set in a more convenient way. Our code is still being developed, but will be freely available early next year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Searight, Research Programmer keith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Univ. of Illinois, Atmospheric Sciences Ph. (217) 333-8132 105 S. Gregory Ave., Urbana, IL 61801 Fax (217) 244-4393 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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