[CF-metadata] Convention attribute

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:11:45 +0000

Dear all

The existing Unidata recommendation is OK and we could incorporate it into
CF but it would help to be more precise, for instance: If the Conventions att
includes no commas, it is interpreted as a blank-separated list of conventions;
if it contains at least one comma, it is interpreted as a comma-separated list.
Blank-separated lists are more CF-like - many CF attributes use that syntax -
but obviously we can't insist that other conventions don't have blanks in their
names, and it would be simpler therefore to use a comma-separated list for
this attribute, despite the Unidata recommendation.

I see no problem with allowing multiple conventions except the important
proviso that if the file follows more that one convention it is the
responsibility of the data-writer to ensure there is no inconsistency between
the metadata following these conventions. That is, they must serve
complementary purposes. It would be impossible to check this automatically so
we have to depend on the data-writer doing it correctly.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Thu Dec 22 2011 - 02:11:45 GMT