On 01/11/17 20:38, Dan Hitt wrote:
The NetCDF does seem to do what i want. As far as i can tell, it allows you to set metadata at the file level as well as attributes attached to specific arrays in your data. It can be installed in debian (packages libnetcdf-dev, netcdf-doc, netcdf-bin). The api doesn't look too complicated, at least if i understand it correctly. The packages come with some simple example programs. And the 'file' command recognizes the data that it produces. And there's some kind of mailing list. So if i can make a go of it, i think that's what i'll be doing.
What language would you like to use? There are bindings for many popular languages including Python, and a Java implementation for JVM languages.
Timeseries representation is straightforward: a one-dimensional "coordinate variable" for time with an attribute like units="seconds since [your epoch goes here]" and data variables of the same shape. The udunits library will even convert units for you. If you make your time dimension UNLIMITED, new time values are written at the end of the file (rather than rewriting the whole file).
Kind regards, -- Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz> Director Transient Software Limited <http://transient.nz/> New Zealand