netCDF kickstarter

Why a netCDF kickstarter?

Reading data from netCDF datasets is quite trivial, especially in combination with an OpenDAP server. See for example this Matlab tutorial. Creating netCDF files that are fully self-descriptive and comply with the CF convention, for example, is not as trivial and can be troublesome if you are regularly creating netCDF datasets to be published on an OpenDAP server.

The netCDF kickstarter helps to set up an empty netCDF file with all meta data in place. The only thing you have to do is add the data. This WIKI page explains how the netCDF kickstarter works and how you can use it.

What is a netCDF kickstarter?

The netCDF kickstarter is based on templates written in the network Common data form Description Language (CDL). CDL templates describe the structure and meta data of a netCDF file. The netCDF kickstarter hosts various CDL templates for different purposes, for example: grid, timeSeries, trajectories.

The CDL templates hosted by the netCDF kickstarter contain markers that need to be replaced by information on the data that the final netCDF file will contain. Different types of markers exists: automatically replaced system markers that contain, for example, the creation date of the netCDF file, markers that need to be replaced with user input, like the name of the creator, etc. The netCDF kickstarter is a tool to easily replace these markers with the right input and subsequently transform the resulting CDL template into a netCDF file.

How does the netCDF kickstarter work?

The netCDF kickstarter is a webservice. This means it can be approached by a URL. The webservice has different interfaces:

• JSON: returns JSON formatted data structures, used for raw data transfer
• CDL: returns CDL templates with markers replaced
• netCDF: returns empty netCDF files based on CDL templates with markers replaced

JSON interface

The JSON interface has the following URL syntax: