README.md

In mdsumner/anc: What the package does (short line)

anc

tiny minimal dumb Rcpp NetCDF package

The NetCDF4 format from NASA consists of a file with two groups

"level-3_binned_data" and "processing_control

(Groups act like a file to the classic NetCDF library, and so a file/group is like a single classic file.)

The "level-3_binned_data" has multiple variables which of "compound type". This just means that they can contain data of different types, like a basic table.

BinList - this is a "row" for every populated bin

• nobs nscenes , time_rec (int16)
• bin_num, flags_set (int32)
• sel_cat (int8)
• weights (float32)

Variables - these are "paired" sum and sum_sq values (float32, I think) e.g. the "RRS" files contain Angstrom, Aot_869, Rrs_412, etc. (depends on the platform/sensor) the "CHL" files contain chlor_a (and so on)

BinIndex - a "row" for the bin scheme (this is too basic to bother reading from the file)

We need a way to

• determine what variables we expect (probably just let R do all this based on file name)
• develop readers for each of the different types (int16, int32, float32) - again R can drive which read type by expected variable name

Check that floating point is always 32-bit?

mdsumner/anc documentation built on May 22, 2019, 4:28 p.m.