Re: Data Packing

• To: netcdfgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: Data Packing
• From: Russ Rew <russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 09:19:04 -0600

> Organization: SSESCO
> Keywords: 199410132201.AA07965

Brian Lincoln asks:

> I went back to read the netCDF manual recently and noticed the following:
> 
> "...we do plan to eventually add a form of transparent data packing on
> write and unpacking on read whenever the reserved attributes _Nbits,
> _Scale, _Offset are defined..." pg 154 of 2.3 manual under "Are there
> plans to add... data compression"
> 
> Is this 'plan' (automatic packing) still in the dream stages or is there
> a planned release with this feature in the works?

Transparent packing is still on a list of desirable enhancements to netCDF,
but there is no planned release date yet.  We hope to get back to working on
netCDF later this year, aiming toward a new release early next year.

If someone else wants to try implementing this, we noticed that preserving
missing values when packing and unpacking will require some care.

--
Russ Rew                                                UCAR Unidata Program
russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                                          P.O. Box 3000
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/                          Boulder, CO 80307-3000

• References:
  • Data Packing
    • From: Brian Lincoln