@Dave-Allured @DocOtak @JonathanGregory Chris Barker (I'm finally back at it.) Thanks for your thoughts and investigations! As far as I'm aware, most general-purpose packages don't parse scalar string or char attributes into string arrays or anything of that sort. I think it's a good point that Chris and Andrew made that many modern netCDF APIs actively hide the difference between string and char attributes, in some cases making it hard to create a char attribute.
So, given all that, I like something along the lines of Jonathan's suggestion. Allow scalar string attributes as interchangeable with char attributes. Don't mention array string attributes. Note that older software may not handle string attributes. (Panoply, python-netCDF4, IDL, and MatLab all handle string attributes well.) Leave the more "exotic" concepts (using arrays for multiple-element things like flag_meanings and Conventions) to CF 2.0. -- You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/cf-convention/cf-conventions/issues/141#issuecomment-417079984
