Re: ncdigest V1 #1119

• To: Jeff Whitaker <jswhit@xxxxxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: ncdigest V1 #1119
• From: Russ Rew <russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:20:42 -0600

Hi Jeff,

> In netcdf-4.0, I don't see how to create variables which are arrays of
> strings with length > 1.  I see how to create arrays of
> single-characters, and arrays of variable-length strings, but not
> strings of a specified length.
  ...
> Maybe Russ or Ed can tell me whether this is possible in netcdf-4.0?
> Being limited to single character arrays in netcdf-3 was one of things
> I really wanted netcdf-4 to overcome.  Variable length strings are
> nice, but they don't map well to commonly used data structures
> (i.e. arrays) in fortran or python.

The distinction between an N-dimensional array of chars and an
(N-1)-dimensional array of fixed-length strings is pretty subtle, and it
looks like we assumed you could use the former if you needed the latter.

Multidimensional arrays of chars are supported in netCDF-4 just as in
netCDF-3.  Maybe a few convenience functions that treat an N-dimensional
array of chars as an (N-1)-dimensional array of strings that happen to
be fixed length are all that's needed.  If not, we may need a more
detailed use case that would make clear why that's inadequate.

--Russ

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