DAP4: DAP4 Projection Syntax

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Background

Currently, the syntax for "projection" constraints in the spec looks roughly like this:

/group1/.../groupn/struct1[a1:b1].field2[a2:b2].struct3[a3:b3].field4[a4:b4]

In looking how John handled this in CDM, I noticed that he used a different but equivalent notation that strikes me a superior.

Proposal

Basically, the proposal is to push all of the indexing to the end of the expression. So we now would have (using the above example):

/group1/.../groupn/struct1.field2.struct3.field4[a1:b1][a2:b2][a3:b3][a4:b4]

Rationale

Assuming one has the rank info for the intermediate structs and fields, the two forms are equivalent. The advantage of this format is that it has a simpler syntax and is easier to parse. It is basically an FQN followed by a sequence of slice specs.

Dennis