netcdf-c

The Unidata network Common Data Form (netCDF) in C is an interface for scientific data access and a set of freely-distributed software libraries that provide an implementation of the interface.
https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c

Category: Climate Change
Sub Category: Climate Data Standards

Keywords

c hacktoberfest netcdf unidata unidata-netcdf

Keywords from Contributors

netcdf4 climate netcdf-fortran netcdf-library weather atmospheric-science grib meteorology snl-applications open-science

Last synced: about 20 hours ago
JSON representation

Repository metadata

Official GitHub repository for netCDF-C libraries and utilities.

Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c
Owner: Unidata
License: bsd-3-clause
Created: 2013-08-06T20:48:09.000Z (about 13 years ago)
Default Branch: main
Last Pushed: 2026-08-28T19:21:38.000Z (3 days ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-28T21:10:45.741Z (3 days ago)
Topics: c, hacktoberfest, netcdf, unidata, unidata-netcdf
Language: C
Homepage:
Size: 67.7 MB
Stars: 601
Watchers: 44
Forks: 302
Open Issues: 291
Releases: 55
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Contributing: .github/CONTRIBUTING.md
- Code of conduct: .github/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- Citation: CITATION.cff
- Codeowners: .github/CODEOWNERS
- Copyright: COPYRIGHT

README.md

Unidata NetCDF

About

The Unidata network Common Data Form (netCDF) is an interface for
scientific data access and a freely-distributed software library that
provides an implementation of the interface. The netCDF library also
defines a machine-independent format for representing scientific data.
Together, the interface, library, and format support the creation,
access, and sharing of scientific data. The current netCDF software
provides C interfaces for applications and data. Separate software
distributions available from Unidata provide Java, Fortran, Python,
and C++ interfaces. They have been tested on various common
platforms.

Properties

NetCDF files are self-describing, network-transparent, directly
accessible, and extendible. Self-describing means that a netCDF file
includes information about the data it contains. Network-transparent
means that a netCDF file is represented in a form that can be accessed
by computers with different ways of storing integers, characters, and
floating-point numbers. Direct-access means that a small subset of a
large dataset may be accessed efficiently, without first reading through
all the preceding data. Extendible means that data can be appended to
a netCDF dataset without copying it or redefining its structure.

Use

NetCDF is useful for supporting access to diverse kinds of scientific
data in heterogeneous networking environments and for writing
application software that does not depend on application-specific
formats. For information about a variety of analysis and display
packages that have been developed to analyze and display data in
netCDF form, see

Software for Manipulating or Displaying NetCDF Data

More information

For more information about netCDF, see

Unidata Network Common Data Form (NetCDF)

Latest releases

You can obtain a copy of the latest released version of netCDF
software for various languages:

Copyright

Installation

To install the netCDF-C software, please see the file INSTALL in the
netCDF-C distribution, or the (usually more up-to-date) document:

Documentation

A language-independent User's Guide for netCDF, and some other
language-specific user-level documents are available from:

A mailing list, netcdfgroup@unidata.ucar.edu, exists for discussion of
the netCDF interface and announcements about netCDF bugs, fixes, and
enhancements. For information about how to subscribe, see the URL

Unidata netCDF Mailing-Lists

Feedback

We appreciate feedback from users of this package. Please send comments, suggestions, and bug reports to support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu.

Citation (CITATION.cff)

# This CITATION.cff file was generated with cffinit.
# Visit https://bit.ly/cffinit to generate yours today!

cff-version: 1.2.0
title: 'NetCDF-C '
message: >-
  If you use this software, please cite it using the
  metadata from this file.
type: software
authors:
  - name: NSF Unidata
    website: 'https://unidata.ucar.edu'
  - given-names: Glenn
    family-names: Davis
    affiliation: UCAR/Unidata
  - given-names: Russ
    family-names: Rew
    affiliation: UCAR/Unidata
  - given-names: Dennis
    family-names: Heimbigner
    affiliation: UCAR/Unidata
  - given-names: Edward
    family-names: Hartnett
    affiliation: 'UCAR/Unidata, NOAA'
  - given-names: Ward
    family-names: Fisher
    affiliation: UCAR/Unidata
  - given-names: Many
    family-names: Others
    affiliation: >-
      https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c/blob/main/docs/credits.md
identifiers:
  - type: doi
    value: 10.5065/D6H70CW6
    description: NetCDF-C library
  - type: url
    value: 'https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/'
    description: NetCDF Homepage
repository-code: 'https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c'
keywords:
  - data
  - netcdf
  - netcdf-c
  - data model
  - software
  - NSF
license: BSD-3-Clause
contact:
  - name: Unidata
    city: Boulder
    region: Colorado
    country: US
    email: support@unidata.ucar.edu
    tel: 303-497-8643
    fax: 303-497-8690
    website: 'https://www.unidata.ucar.edu'
doi: 10.5065/D6H70CW6
abstract: >
    NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) is a set of software libraries and machine-independent data formats that support the creation, access, and sharing of array-oriented scientific data. It is also a community standard for sharing scientific data. The Unidata Program Center supports and maintains netCDF programming interfaces for C, C++, Java, and Fortran. Programming interfaces are also available for Python, IDL, MATLAB, R, Ruby, and Perl.

Owner metadata

Name: NSF Unidata
Login: Unidata
Email: support@unidata.ucar.edu
Kind: organization
Description: Our mission is to transform the geosciences community, research, and education by providing innovative data services and tools.
Website: https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
Location: Boulder, Colorado, USA
Twitter: unidata
Company:
Icon url: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/613345?v=4
Repositories: 130
Last ynced at: 2024-04-16T01:03:51.770Z
Profile URL: https://github.com/Unidata

GitHub Events

Total

Commit comment event: 1
Create event: 13
Delete event: 7
Fork event: 24
Issue comment event: 539
Issues event: 116
Pull request event: 165
Pull request review comment event: 39
Pull request review event: 80
Push event: 136
Release event: 2
Watch event: 61

Last Year

Create event: 2
Fork event: 4
Issue comment event: 128
Issues event: 46
Pull request event: 60
Pull request review comment event: 12
Pull request review event: 26
Push event: 52
Watch event: 8

Committers metadata

Last synced: 12 days ago

Total Commits: 8,529
Total Committers: 121
Avg Commits per committer: 70.488
Development Distribution Score (DDS): 0.759

Commits in past year: 550
Committers in past year: 20
Avg Commits per committer in past year: 27.5
Development Distribution Score (DDS) in past year: 0.72

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Ed Hartnett	e**t@g**m	1493
Dennis Heimbigner	d**h@u**u	1306
Ward Fisher	w**r@u**u	1063
Edward Hartnett	e**t@n**v	583
Dennis Heimbigner	d**h@u**u	479
Russ Rew	r**s@u**u	329
Greg Sjaardema	g**a@g**m	169
Peter Hill	p**l@y**k	141
Kyle Shores	k**4@g**m	128
Wei-keng Liao	w****o	97
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Wei-keng Liao	w**o@e**u	60
Sean McBride	s**n@r**m	43
DWesl	2****l	42
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Milton Woods	m**s@g**m	27
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Nico Schlömer	n**r@g**m	18
Dave Allured	d**d@n**v	17
Orion Poplawski	o**n@n**m	14
Charlie Zender	z**r@u**u	13
Tobias Kölling	t**g@p**e	12
Even Rouault	e**t@s**m	11
Magnus Ulimoen	m**u@m**o	11
Greg Sjaardema	g**r@s**v	10
dkjsone	2****e	8
Julien Schueller	s**r@p**m	8
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Issue and Pull Request metadata

Last synced: 2 days ago

Total issues: 1,571
Total pull requests: 1,787
Average time to close issues: 5 months
Average time to close pull requests: about 1 month
Total issue authors: 336
Total pull request authors: 141
Average comments per issue: 5.35
Average comments per pull request: 2.6
Merged pull request: 1,417
Bot issues: 0
Bot pull requests: 4

Past year issues: 43
Past year pull requests: 64
Past year average time to close issues: about 2 months
Past year average time to close pull requests: 23 days
Past year issue authors: 24
Past year pull request authors: 19
Past year average comments per issue: 1.53
Past year average comments per pull request: 1.95
Past year merged pull request: 30
Past year bot issues: 0
Past year bot pull requests: 0

More stats: https://issues.ecosyste.ms/repositories/lookup?url=https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c

Top Issue Authors

edhartnett (372)
edwardhartnett (203)
WardF (139)
DennisHeimbigner (57)
gsjaardema (41)
czender (36)
nschloe (30)
opoplawski (26)
abhibaruah (24)
Alexander-Barth (23)
jswhit (23)
wkliao (21)
ArchangeGabriel (16)
Dave-Allured (16)
sebastic (15)

Top Pull Request Authors

DennisHeimbigner (387)
WardF (347)
edhartnett (244)
edwardhartnett (154)
gsjaardema (135)
wkliao (54)
ZedThree (54)
mannreis (42)
nschloe (19)
Dave-Allured (16)
mathstuf (15)
seanm (14)
opoplawski (14)
K20shores (12)
qkoziol (12)

Top Issue Labels

type/bug (92)
type/enhancement (43)
area/netcdf4 (43)
status/under review (38)
area/build/cmake (29)
area/tests (28)
type/feature request (27)
area/documentation (27)
area/utils (24)
area/parallel (24)
status/confirmed (24)
status/fix required (21)
area/DAP2 (21)
status/revisit (15)
platform/windows (14)
area/general (13)
arch/any (13)
area/DAP4 (13)
platform/any (13)
area/build/all (12)
priority/high (12)
type/question (11)
status/more information needed (9)
status/under consideration (9)
status/can't duplicate (8)
area/build/autoconf (8)
resolution/patch welcome (8)
area/netcdf3 (7)
type/clarification (7)
priority/low (6)

Top Pull Request Labels

status/under review (19)
area/build/cmake (17)
type/enhancement (15)
area/parallel (13)
priority/high (11)
area/tests (10)
type/bug (9)
area/documentation (9)
area/netcdf4 (8)
area/build/all (6)
priority/low (6)
area/DAP4 (5)
area/build/autoconf (4)
area/DAP2 (4)
platform/windows (4)
area/utils (3)
area/compression_plugins (3)
rebase (3)
status/under consideration (3)
arch/any (2)
reason/test failure (2)
Conflict Resolved (2)
dependencies (2)
type/information (2)
area/static analysis (2)
area/compilers (2)
priority/medium (1)
area/hdf5 (1)
area/netcdf3 (1)
priority/immediate (1)

Package metadata

Total packages: 7
Total downloads:
- conda: 705,372
Total dependent packages: 66 (may contain duplicates)
Total dependent repositories: 662 (may contain duplicates)
Total versions: 279

proxy.golang.org: github.com/Unidata/netCDF-c

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/Unidata/netCDF-c#section-documentation
Licenses: bsd-3-clause
Latest release: v4.10.1+incompatible (published about 2 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-29T21:33:41.432Z (2 days ago)
Versions: 51
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 4.494%
- Average: 4.645%
- Dependent repos count: 4.796%

proxy.golang.org: github.com/Unidata/netCDF-C

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/Unidata/netCDF-C#section-documentation
Licenses: bsd-3-clause
Latest release: v4.10.1+incompatible (published about 2 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-29T21:38:02.675Z (2 days ago)
Versions: 51
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 4.524%
- Average: 4.677%
- Dependent repos count: 4.829%

proxy.golang.org: github.com/Unidata/netcdf-C

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/Unidata/netcdf-C#section-documentation
Licenses: bsd-3-clause
Latest release: v4.10.1+incompatible (published about 2 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-29T21:33:01.392Z (2 days ago)
Versions: 51
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 4.757%
- Average: 4.917%
- Dependent repos count: 5.077%

proxy.golang.org: github.com/unidata/netcdf-c

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/unidata/netcdf-c#section-documentation
Licenses: bsd-3-clause
Latest release: v4.10.1+incompatible (published about 2 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-29T21:34:03.627Z (2 days ago)
Versions: 51
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 6.999%
- Average: 8.173%
- Dependent repos count: 9.346%

proxy.golang.org: github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c#section-documentation
Licenses: bsd-3-clause
Latest release: v4.10.1+incompatible (published about 2 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-29T21:37:26.045Z (2 days ago)
Versions: 51
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 6.999%
- Average: 8.173%
- Dependent repos count: 9.346%

conda-forge.org: libnetcdf

Homepage: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/
Licenses: MIT
Latest release: 4.9.0 (published almost 4 years ago)
Last Synced: 2026-08-09T23:07:20.411Z (22 days ago)
Versions: 15
Dependent Packages: 63
Dependent Repositories: 331
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 1.203%
- Dependent repos count: 1.642%
- Average: 8.314%
- Forks count: 11.6%
- Stargazers count: 18.812%

anaconda.org: libnetcdf

The Unidata network Common Data Form (netCDF) is an interface for scientific data access and a freely-distributed software library that provides an implementation of the interface. The netCDF library also defines a machine-independent format for representing scientific data. Together, the interface, library, and format support the creation, access, and sharing of scientific data. The current netCDF software provides C interfaces for applications and data. Separate software distributions available from Unidata provide Java, Fortran, Python, and C++ interfaces. They have been tested on various common platforms.

Homepage: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-c
Licenses: BSD-3-Clause
Latest release: 4.10.1 (published about 2 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-07-17T12:38:34.715Z (about 2 months ago)
Versions: 9
Dependent Packages: 3
Dependent Repositories: 331
Downloads: 705,372 Total
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 9.629%
- Dependent packages count: 13.462%
- Average: 19.005%
- Forks count: 21.251%
- Stargazers count: 31.677%

Dependencies

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Score: 25.05676882768119