on better thinking , this design has the problem of netCDF having things that HDF5 does not (named dimensions),
and HDF5 has things that netCDF does not, so it's a bit of a catch 22 ; so maybe just keep them separate
my design method is usually a bit of specification , then a bit of code , then when something new comes up that was not planned, go to step 1 ,
and re-write the spec, sometimes re-write the code
···
----- Original Message -----
From: Pedro Vicente
To: Chris Barker
Cc: HDF Users Discussion List ; netCDF Mail List
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 7:33 PM
Subject: Re: [netcdfgroup] How to dump netCDF to JSON?
>>my thought was to make a netcdfJSON, then add features to make an hdfJSON. (and netcdfJSON would look a lot like CDL)
>>So a netcdfJSON file would be a valid hdfJSON file, but not the other way around.
yes, sounds like a good plan
I''ll send you an email when I have things ready, thanks
-Pedro
----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Barker
To: Pedro Vicente
Cc: John Readey ; netCDF Mail List ; HDF Users Discussion List
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: [netcdfgroup] How to dump netCDF to JSON?
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 3:00 PM, Pedro Vicente <pedro.vicente@space-research.org> wrote:
>>> This is making me think that we may want a spec for netcdf-json that would be a subset of the hdf-json spec.
that is one option;
other option is to make a JSON form of netCDF CDL , completely unaware of HDF5 (just like the netCDF API is)
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/workshops/2011/utilities/CDL.html
yup.
Are they mutually exclusive approaches? my thought was to make a netcdfJSON, then add features to make an hdfJSON. (and netcdfJSON would look a lot like CDL)
So a netcdfJSON file would be a valid hdfJSON file, but not the other way around.
Like a netcdf4 file is a valid hdf5 file now.
-CHB
with the "data" part being optional, which was one of the goals of my design, to transmit just metadata over the web, for a quick remote inspection
-Pedro
----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Barker
To: John Readey
Cc: Pedro Vicente ; netCDF Mail List ; HDF Users Discussion List
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [netcdfgroup] How to dump netCDF to JSON?
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 12:02 PM, John Readey <jreadey@hdfgroup.org> wrote:
So we came up with a scheme of Group, Dataset, and Datatype collections with a UUID to identify each object. That way if you a reference to a specific UUID, you can always access the object regardless of what shenanigans may be happening with the links in the file.
It’s true that this makes path look ups a bit more cumbersome, but it’s a more general way of specify a directed graph (the HDF5 link structure) on a tree (the JSON hierarchy).
Hmm -- interesting. I hadn't realized that HDF was this flexible. For my part, I've only really used netcdf.
This is making me think that we may want a spec for netcdf-json that would be a subset of the hdf-json spec.
That way they can be as compatible as possible without "cluttering up" the netcdf spec too much.
-CHB
John
From: Pedro Vicente <pedro.vicente@space-research.org>
Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 at 9:37 PM
To: John Readey <jreadey@hdfgroup.org>, Chris Barker <chris.barker@noaa.gov>
Cc: netCDF Mail List <netcdfgroup@unidata.ucar.edu>, HDF Users Discussion List <hdf-forum@lists.hdfgroup.org>
Subject: Re: [netcdfgroup] How to dump netCDF to JSON?
@John
>> 1. Complete fidelity to all HDF5 features
>> 2. Support graphs that are not acyclic.
ok, understood.
In my case I needed a simple schema for a particular set of files.
But why didn't you start with the official HDF5 DDL
https://support.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/ddl.html
and try to adapt to JSON?
Same thing for netCDF, there is already an official CDL, so any JSON spec should be "identical".
@Chris
{
"dset1" : ["dataset", "STAR_INT32", 2, [3, 4], [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]]
}
>> * Do you need "rank"?
sometimes a bit of redundancy is useful, to make it visually clear
>> BTW, is a "dataset" in HDF the same thing as a "variable" in netcdf?)
yes
>>It would be really great to have this become an "official" spec -- if you want to get it there, you're probably going to need to develop it more out in the open with a wider community. These lists are the way to get that started, but I suggest
>>1) put it up somewhere that people can collaborate on it, make suggestions, capture the discussion, etc. gitHub is one really nice way to do that. See, for example the UGRID spec project:
ok, anyone interested send me an off list email
-Pedro
----- Original Message -----
From: John Readey
To: Chris Barker ; Pedro Vicente
Cc: netCDF Mail List ; Charlie Zender ; HDF Users Discussion List ; David Pearah
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: [netcdfgroup] How to dump netCDF to JSON?
Hey,
The hdf5-json code is here: https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5-json and docs are here: http://hdf5-json.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.
The package is both a library of HFD5 <-> JSON conversion functions and some simple scripts for converting HDF5 to JSON and vice-versa. E.g.
$ python h5tojson.py –D <hdf5-file>
outputs JSON minus the dataset data values.
While it may not be the most elegant JSON schema, it’s designed with the following goals in mind:
1. Complete fidelity to all HDF5 features (i.e. the goal is that you should be able to take any HDF5 files, convert it to JSON, convert back to HDF5 and wind up with a file that is semantically equivalent to what you started with.
2. Support graphs that are not acyclic. I.e. a group structure like <root> links with A, and B. And A and B links to C. The output should only produce one representation of C.
Since NetCDF doesn’t use all these features, it’s certainly possible to come up with something simpler for just netCDF files.
Suggestions, feedback, and pull requests are welcome!
Cheers,
John
From: Chris Barker <chris.barker@noaa.gov>
Date: Friday, October 14, 2016 at 12:32 PM
To: Pedro Vicente <pedro.vicente@space-research.org>
Cc: netCDF Mail List <netcdfgroup@unidata.ucar.edu>, Charlie Zender <zender@uci.edu>, John Readey <jreadey@hdfgroup.org>, HDF Users Discussion List <hdf-forum@lists.hdfgroup.org>, David Pearah <David.Pearah@hdfgroup.org>
Subject: Re: [netcdfgroup] How to dump netCDF to JSON?
Pedro,
When I first started reading this thread, I thought "there should be a spec for how to represent netcdf in JSON"
and then I read:
1) The specification to convert netCDF/HDF5 to "a" JSON format (note the "a" here)
Awesome -- that's exactly what we need -- as you say there is not one way to represent netcdf data in JSON, and probably far more than one "obvious" way.
Without looking at your spec yet, I do think it should probably look as much like CDL as possible -- we are all familiar with that.
(why Python? HDF5 developer tools should be all about writing in C/C++)
Because Python is an excellent language with which to "drive" C/C++ libraries like HDF5 and netcdf4. If I were to do this, I'd sure use Python. Even if you want to get to a C++ implementation eventually, you'd probably benefit from prototyping and working out the kinks with a Python version first.
But whoever is writing the code....
The specification is here
http://www.space-research.org/
Just took a quick look -- nice start.
I've only used HDF through the netcdf4 spec, so there may be richness needed that I'm missing, but my first thought is to a make greater use of "objects" in JSON (key-value structures, hash tables, dicts in python), rather than array position for heterogeneous structures. For instance, you have:
a dataset
{
"dset1" : ["dataset", "STAR_INT32", 2, [3, 4], [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]]
}
I would perhaps do that as something like:
{
...
"dset1":{"object_type": "dataset",
"dtype": "INT32"
"rank": 2,
"dimensions": [3,4],
"data": [[1,2,3,4],
[5,6,7,8],
[9,10,11,12]]
}
...
}
NOTES:
* I used nested arrays, rather than flattening the 2-d array -- this maps nicely to things like numpy arrays, for example -- not sure about the C++ world. (you can flatten and un-flatten numpy arrays easily, too, but this seems like a better mapping to the structure) And HDF is storing this all in chunks and who knows what -- so it's not a direct mapping to the memory layout anyway.
* Do you need "rank"? -- can't you check the length of the dimensions array?
* Do you need "object_type" -- will it always be a dataset? Or you could have something like:
{
...
"datasets": {"dset1": {the actual dataset object},
"dset2": {another dataset object},
....
}
Then you don't need object_type or a name
(BTW, is a "dataset" in HDF the same thing as a "variable" in netcdf?)
I would like to make this some kind of "official" netCDF/HDF5 JSON format for the community, so I encourage anyone to read the specification
If you see any flaw in the design or anything in the design that you would like to have change please let me know now
done 
It would be really great to have this become an "official" spec -- if you want to get it there, you're probably going to need to develop it more out in the open with a wider community. These lists are the way to get that started, but I suggest:
1) put it up somewhere that people can collaborate on it, make suggestions, capture the discussion, etc. gitHub is one really nice way to do that. See, for example the UGRID spec project:
https://github.com/ugrid-conventions/ugrid-conventions
(NOTE that that one got put on gitHub after there was a pretty complete draft spec, so there isn't THAT much discussion captured. But also note that that is too bad -- there is no good record of the decision process that led to the spec)
At the moment it only (intentionally) uses common generic features of both netCDF and HDF5, which are the numeric atomic types and strings.
Good plan.
-Chris
--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception
Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception
Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception
Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
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