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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* Upper Ocean Processes Group Mail Stop 29 *
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