Common Data Format (CDF)
The Common Data Format (CDF) is a self-describing data format for the
storage and manipulation of scalar and
multidimensional data in a platform- and discipline-independent fashion.
When one first hears the term "Common Data Format" one intuitively thinks
of data formats
in the traditional (i.e. messy/convoluted storage of data on disk or tape)
sense of the word. Although CDF has its own internal self describing format,
it consists of more than just a data format. CDF is a scientific data
management package (known as the "CDF Library") which allows programmers
and application developers to manage and manipulate scalar, vector, and
multi-dimensional data arrays. The irony of the term "FORMAT" is that the
actual data format which CDF utilizes is completely transparent to the user
and accessible through a consistent set of interface (known as the "CDF
Interface") routines. Therefore, programmers are not burdened with performing
low level I/O's to physically format and unformat the data file. This is all
done for them automatically.
Please send an email to
cdfsupport@listserv.gsfc.nasa.gov for any CDF related
questions (both technical and policy related).
Announcements
Introductory Information about CDF
Value Added Service
Space Physics Users of CDF
Obtaining CDF software and documentation
Access to the latest CDF software and documentation is available via anonymous FTP on
cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov. Below is a listing of the various platforms
and operating systems supported by CDF:
- DEC Alpha/OSF1 & OpenVMS
- DECstation/ULTRIX & VMS
- HP 9000 series/HP-UX
- PC Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista, Linux, Solaris, Cygwin, MinGW & QNX
- IBM RS600 series/AIX
- Macintosh OS X 10.3 or a later version
- NeXT/Mach
- SGI Iris, Power series and Indigo/IRIX
- Sun/SunOS & SOLARIS
- VAX/VMS
The above systems are fully supported for CDF 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7. CDF 3.0
or later is supported on all the platforms listed above except for the IBM AIX,
HP-UX, and SGI Irix operating systems (due to lack of interest and hardware).
If you need to run CDF 3.0 or later on these operating
systems, please contact
cdfsupport@listserv.gsfc.nasa.gov. Please note that the most recent updates and maintenance may only go into the latest release version. Contact the cdfsupport for any special requests.
User-supplied Software
Utilities listed below are written and donated by CDF users. Software
is provided as is without any implied warranties whatsoever.
-
Sybase-to-CDF
- This Perl script is written by the Gravity Probe B team at the
Stanford University, and it extracts data from a Sybase database
to CDF format using the Perl DBI and CDF Perl modules.
-
Speedups for reading CDF files in MATLAB
- This patch (donated by Dr. Robert Weigel at GMU) reads all the CDF records at once, and it's significantly
faster than the MATLAB's CDFREAD function.
-
MySQL-to-CDF
- This Perl script is written by Dr. Joshua Shaffer at the Drexel University. It
enumerates all the attributes in a given relation, creates the corresponding
CDF structure, and dumps the MySQL data into the CDF file. It uses Perl DBI, but it
can be adapted to work with other DBD drivers.
User Support and Help Desk
SPDF Home Page
Space Physics
Use of CDF
NSSDC Home Page