#169: Add support for complex numbers to CF
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Reporter: mikedixon | Owner: cf-conventions@…
Type: enhancement | Status: new
Priority: high | Milestone:
Component: cf-conventions | Version:
Resolution: | Keywords:
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Comment (by jonathan):
Dear Mike
Thanks for your proposal. It would probably encourage discussion if you
could put the text in this ticket. That's more accessible than a linked
PDF or !GitHub, because the ticket is distributed to everyone by email in
plain text. We may change to using !GitHub instead of trac, but we're not
yet technically set up for that. It's being worked on.
As you say, a complex number is a pair of real numbers, where each member
of the pair has a distinct function. A way we could accommodate this need
in CF without any structural change is to store each complex data variable
as a pair of real data variables, where the two members are distinguished
by standard names. This is analogous to vector quantities, in which each
component is stored as a separate data variable and distinguished by
standard name, such as eastward, northward and upward components of sea
water velocity. As you say, the components may have different units. A
standard name implies canonical units, so components with different units
cannot have the same standard name, so cannot be in the same data
variable. To remove this restriction would probably raise a lot of
potential problems.
Best wishes
Jonathan
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Ticket URL: <https://cf-trac.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/169#comment:1>
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