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[CF-metadata] Convention attribute

From: Nan Galbraith <ngalbraith>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:18:05 -0500

Thanks Russ, Dave(s), Jonathan and Lorenzo -

Thanks for the clarifications. I agree that it makes sense to
require that convention names not contain spaces, and that
it's easier (and more CF-like, hence better!) to parse space
separated terms.

Cheers - Nan

> The recommendation on the Unidata site for multiple conventions
>
> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/conventions.html
>
> is to use spaces rather than commas:
>
> It is possible for a netCDF file to adhere to more than one set of
> conventions, even when there is no inheritance relationship among the
> conventions. In this case, the value of the `Conventions' attribute
> may be a single text string containing a list of the convention names
> separated by blank space (recommended) or commas (if a convention name
> contains blanks), for example
>
> :Conventions = "XXX YYY" ;


   On Dec/22/2011 6:01 AM, Lorenzo Bigagli wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> my opinion is to keep with the current recommendation, which better supports automatic parsing and the existing conforming datasets.
> In particular, I would avoid any parsing rule for the conventions attribute, keeping its syntax as simple as possible (as Jonathan points out, blank-separated lists are more CF-like).
>
> I think it makes sense to require convention identifiers not to contain spaces (as usual in identifiers).
> Those conventions that have not followed Unidata recommendation may be dealt with on a transitional basis (e.g. by means of specific parsing exceptions), while they are aligned in a future revision.
>
> Best wishes,
> LB
>
> Il giorno 22/dic/2011, alle ore 10:11, Jonathan Gregory ha scritto:
>
>> 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.
>>
>

-- 
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Received on Thu Dec 22 2011 - 08:18:05 GMT

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