[CF-metadata] Pre-proposal for "charset"

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2017 20:30:10 +0000

Dear Chris and Bob

> I wasn't clear -- even if you know a CHAR array is supposed to be an array
> of strings, you don't know which dimension is the "string" dimension, and
> which is the array dimension. If you have a 3x4 array of length-5 strings,
> what is your CHAR array dimension? either of these would make sense:
>
> (3,4,5)
> (5,3,4)
> and
> (3,5,4) would be possible, though a bit insane :-)
>
> even worse, if you see a "string" array that has dimensions of (3,4,5) what
> is that? and (3,4) array of length-5 strings? a (4,5) array or length 3
> strings?

For string-valued auxiliary coordinate variables (CF section 6.1) it's
explicitly stated that the trailing dimension in CDL is the string length.
The DSG station variables e.g. timeseries station names, are like string-valued
auxiliary coordinate variables for the station (instance) dimension of a DSG,
and the same rule applies (as in Example H6).

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Tue Feb 28 2017 - 13:30:10 GMT