R: Open a NetCDF data file

open.netCDF {netCDF}

R Documentation

Open a NetCDF data file

Description

These functions open, close, and read metadata from a netCDF data file. For open.netCDF the whole function name must be used; the other functions are methods for existing generic functions.

Usage

open.netCDF(filename, verbose=F)
is.open.netCDF(object)
close.netCDF(object)
dim.netCDF(object)
names.netCDF(object)
summary.netCDF(object)

Arguments

`filename`	name of netCDF file
`verbose`	Should netCDF error messages be printed?
`x`	see below

Details

NetCDF is a portable data format used by the National Center for Atmosphereric Research and many others. Its advantages are that it allows metadata (units, dimensions,etc) to be stored and that arbitrary hyperrectangle subsets of the data can be read efficiently.

The open.netCDF function opens a netCDF file, which remains open until it is explicitly closed. Data can be read with read.netCDF.

Value

open.netCDF returns an object of class netCDF, dim() returns the dimensions, names returns the variable names, summary returns all the attributes.

Note

This code uses the deprecated netCDF version 2 compatibility library and should be updated.

Author(s)

Thomas Lumley