This message came from the CF Trac system. Do not reply. Instead, enter your comments in the CF Trac system at https://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/.
#74: Allow sharing of ancillary variables among multiple data variables ---------------------------------------+------------------------------------ Reporter: [email protected] | Owner: [email protected] Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: medium | Milestone: Component: cf-conventions | Version: Resolution: | Keywords: "ancillary data" "standard name modifiers" ---------------------------------------+------------------------------------ Comment (by mgschultz): Dear all, I am all for this proposal. Only, I would like to raise one more technical point, i.e. we should define the proper way for parsing a standard_name with this extension. If I am not mistaken, then the current proposal mandates to read a standard_name attribute from right to left, checking first if the rightmost part is actually a standard_name modifier. If so, then one or more standard_names (separated by blanks) are allowed to the left. If the rightmost string is no standard_name modifier, it is supposed to be a standard_name and must be one string (i.e. no blanks). For a moment, I was wondering whether it would make sense to think a little broader and introduce the concept of a "standard_name pointer", meaning that - through a modifier - the variable content is no longer referring to a quantity that is described by the standard_name itself, but the standard_names that are listed, are merely references to variables with that content. It may then be useful to indicate this explicitly in the syntax, for example, by prepending a "*" as in the C language, or a more xml-style identifier such as "X:". The example given at the top of this thread would then become: {{{ int nobs(lat,lon); . . nobs:standard_name="X:sea_water_potential_temperature sea_water_salinity number_of_observations"; . . }}} ... and then it would probably be easier to understand if the modifier would come first, followed by the list of variables to which it refers, i.e.: {{{ int nobs(lat,lon); . . nobs:standard_name="X:number_of_observations sea_water_potential_temperature sea_water_salinity"; . . }}} I realize, this is a more radical change. If there are sympathies for this, then we should perhaps schedule it for CF 2.0? Best, Martin -- Ticket URL: <https://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/74#comment:23> CF Metadata <http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/> CF Metadata This message came from the CF Trac system. To unsubscribe, without unsubscribing to the regular cf-metadata list, send a message to "[email protected]" with "unsubscribe cf-metadata" in the body of your message.
