BES - Modules - The NetCDF Handler

Kinds of files the handler will serve

There are several versions of the netCDF software for reading and writing data and using those different versions, it's possible to make several different kinds of data files. For the most part, netCDF strives to maintain compatibility so that any older file can be read using any newer version of the library. To ensure that the netCDF handler can read (almost) any valid netCDF data file, you should make sure to use the latest version of the netCDF library when you build or install the handler.

However, as of netCDF 4, there are some new data model components in netCDF that are hard to represent in DAP2 (hence the 'almost' in the preceding paragraph). If the handler, as of version 3.10.x, is linked with netCDF 4.1.x or later, you will be able to read any netCDF file that fits the 'classic' model of netCDF (as defined by documentation) which essentially means any file that uses only data types present in the netCDF 3.x API. In addition, these files can employ both internal compression and chunking.