[CF-metadata] Multiple file datasets

From: John Caron <caron>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:17:58 -0700

Hi Jonathan, Steve, et al:

Question:

Do we use "cross referencing variables" just in the "coordinates"
attribute or are there other places?

Comment:

Not having the files explicitly named means that the collection of files
is defined externally. NcML does this, as apparently does the cdms
cdscan utilility, and im sure lots more. These external systems that
define collections may have semantics about variable names. NcML, for
example, has a "union" aggregation that logically combines all variables
with distinct names into a single dataset, ignoring duplicates. It also
has a "join" aggregation that logically combines all variables with the
same name along an "aggregation dimension", essentially concatenating
them, eg for time slices.

It might be useful to do a quick survey of what existing "aggregators"
do to make sure we are not inadvertently breaking some of these.
Received on Mon Nov 23 2009 - 16:17:58 GMT