MATLAB Function Reference

cdfinfo

Return information about CDF file

Syntax

• info = cdfinfo(file)
  

Description

info = cdfinfo(file) returns information about the Common Data Format (CDF) file specified in the string file.

Note    Because cdfinfo creates temporary files, the current working directory must be writeable.

The return value, info, is a structure that contains the fields listed alphabetically in the following table.

Field	Description
FileModDate	Text string indicating the date the file was last modified
Filename	Text string specifying the name of the file
FileSettings	Structure array containing library settings used to create the file
FileSize	Double scalar specifying the size of the file, in bytes
Format	Text string specifying the file format
FormatVersion	Text string specifying the version of the CDF library used to create the file
GlobalAttributes	Structure array that contains one field for each global attribute. The name of each field corresponds to the name of an attribute. The data in each field, contained in a cell array, represents the entry values for that attribute.
Subfiles	Filenames containing the CDF file's data, if it is a multifile CDF
VariableAttributes	Structure array that contains one field for each variable attribute. The name of each field corresponds to the name of an attribute. The data in each field is contained in a n-by-2 cell array, where n is the number of variables. The first column of this cell array contains the variable names associated with the entries. The second column contains the entry values.
Variables	N-by-6 cell array, where N is the number of variables, containing information about the variables in the file. The columns present the following information:
	Column 1	Text string specifying name of variable
	Column 2	Double array specifying the dimensions of the variable, as returned by the size function
	Column 3	Double scalar specifying the number of records assigned for the variable
	Column 4	Text string specifying the data type of the variable, as stored in the CDF file
	Column 5	Text string specifying the record and dimension variance settings for the variable. The single T or F to the left of the slash designates whether values vary by record. The zero or more T or F letters to the right of the slash designate whether values vary at each dimension. Here are some examples. T/      (scalar variable F/T     (one-dimensional variable)    T/TFF   (three-dimensional variable)
	Column 6	Text string specifying the sparsity of the variable's records, with these possible values: 'Full' 'Sparse (padded)' 'Sparse (nearest)'

Note    Attribute names returned by cdfinfo might not match the names of the attributes in the CDF file exactly. Attribute names can contain characters that are illegal in MATLAB field names. cdfinfo removes illegal characters that appear at the beginning of attributes and replaces other illegal characters with underscores ('_'). When cdfinfo modifies an attribute name, it appends the attribute's internal number to the end of the field name. For example, the attribute name Variable%Attribute becomes Variable_Attribute_013.

Examples

• info = cdfinfo('example.cdf')
  info = 
                Filename: 'example.cdf'
             FileModDate: '29-Jun-1995 05:51:58'
                FileSize: 230513
                  Format: 'CDF'
           FormatVersion: '2.4.8'
            FileSettings: [1x1 struct]
                Subfiles: {}
               Variables: {7x6 cell}
        GlobalAttributes: [1x1 struct]
      VariableAttributes: [1x1 struct]
  
  info.Variables
  ans = 
      'L_gse'        [1x2 double]   [   1]   'char'    'F/T'  'Full'
      'Status%C1'    [1x2 double]   [7493]   'uint8'   'T/T'  'Full'
      'B_gse%C1'     [1x2 double]   [7493]   'single'  'T/T'  'Full'
      'B_nsigma%C1'  [1x2 double]   [7493]   'single'  'T/'   'Full'
  

See Also

cdfread

cdfepoch

cdfread

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