Global Metadata

Global attributes are used to provide informational metadata associated with all the variables in the file, and as a means of attaching information that may be carried along with the data.

START_META

This parameter starts a block of metadata supplying the entries associated with a global attribute (in cdf terminology). This block is closed by an END_META parameter. They are described more fully below. The value associated with these parameters is the name of the global attribute. No defaults are provided, and no global attributes are required by this syntax. The CAA requires metadata as specified in the CAA Metadata Dictionary, CAA-CDPP-TN-0002.

The Global attribute block starts with a line
START_META = name
and ends with the line
END_META = name
where the value name is the name of the global attribute. The name is not restricted to the Global Attributes used by CSDS for the Prime and Summary Parameter files. Specification of a named metadata block implies creation of metadata with that name. This name is case insensitive.

The global metadata block contains the following entries:

ENTRY

The value associated with this entry is the next entry in the global attribute. Space characters are valid within a text entry, and text entries must be enclosed in double quotes. This parameter may be repeated, with each successive value providing the next entry in the attribute.

VALUE_TYPE

The VALUE_TYPE of a global attribute may be used to convert the ascii text entry in each ENTRY into the appropriate type of the value in the data structure. The default value for each global metadata block independently is text. This parameter allows changing of type for each subsequent ENTRY within a block until reset with another VALUE_TYPE parameter, or the end of the attribute block is reached. Allowed values are
ISO_TIME
FLOAT
DOUBLE
INT
CHAR
BYTE

ISO standard date/time strings are used in the same format as used in data records.