# Does anyone use the HDF4-built netCDF tools?

**URL:** <https://forum.hdfgroup.org/t/does-anyone-use-the-hdf4-built-netcdf-tools/10855>\
**Category:** HDF4\
**Created:** [February 20, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/t/does-anyone-use-the-hdf4-built-netcdf-tools/10855 "2023-02-20T18:41:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![derobins](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/user_avatar/forum.hdfgroup.org/derobins/32/1481_2.png) [@derobins](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/u/derobins)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/t/does-anyone-use-the-hdf4-built-netcdf-tools/10855/1 "2023-02-20T18:41:31Z")

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When you build HDF4, you also get some HDF4-built versions of netCDF tools: ncdump and ncgen and the nctest test program.

Are these important to anyone? They are based on a very old version of netCDF (2.3.2, circa 1993) and conflict with netCDF’s own programs, which makes deploying netCDF and HDF4 together (unnecessarily?) complicated.

For 4.2.16, I’m adding a configure option to not build them and I’d like to have that disabled by default. In the future, I’d like to remove as much of this cruft as I can.

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**Author:** ![derobins](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/user_avatar/forum.hdfgroup.org/derobins/32/1481_2.png) [@derobins](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/u/derobins)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2023, 9:16pm UTC](https://forum.hdfgroup.org/t/does-anyone-use-the-hdf4-built-netcdf-tools/10855/2 "2023-02-20T21:16:34Z")

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