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Goal: Learn about data types that can be read in CDAT.

The scientific data and atmospheric data in particular can be stored in many data file formats. There are so called "self describing" formats and usual ASCII, binary formats. The self describing formats are platform independent binary file formats, that also hold the data annotation - the names of the variables inside, their dimentions, possible bounding values, variable description and units, etc. 

Self describing data formats readable by CDAT

CDAT can read the following data formats:

NetCDF, HDF, GrADS/GRIB (with a control file), PP, DRS (this requires special build), POP, QL.
CDMS is also an OpenDAP client, you can access OpenDAP served data by typing the URL instead of the file name. DRS, HDF, GrADS/GRIB, POP, QL are accessible in read-only mode.

Othe file formats

CDAT can also read ASCII and binary (Fortran row/column order) files.

Note:
CDAT writes the data in NetCDF format only.

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