This form allows you to run the 'cfchecks.py' script to check that the contents of a NetCDF file comply with the Climate and Forecasts (CF) Metadata Convention. The CF-checker was developed at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, UK Met Office by Rosalyn Hatcher. This work was supported by PRISM (PRogramme for Integrated Earth System Modelling).
Development and maintenance for the CF-checker has now been taken over by the NCAS Computational Modelling Services (NCAS-CMS). If you have suggestions for improvement then please e-mail Rosalyn Hatcher at NCAS-CMS (r.s.hatcher@reading.ac.uk).
To check your file, please use the drop down menu to select the version of the CF conventions to check against, enter the file name in the box below then press Check file. You can use the Browse... button to help you select the file.
For details of the NetCDF format and the CF Convention go to the NetCDF format page or the CF Convention page.
There are some requirements of the convention that it is difficult or impossible to implement in the Checker. A list of aspects which the checker doesn't check can be found here.
The CF Checker has been upgraded to use CDAT5.2, UDUNITS-2 and the NetCDF4.0 libraries. You can now compliance check NetCDF4.0 files. Although the code has been tested successfully on a series of test cases, it is impossible to test every eventuality. Please email (r.s.hatcher@reading.ac.uk) if you encounter any problems.
Note: you may find that there are some units that are now invalid by UDUNITS-2 and vice-versa. E.g. M/S which was valid under UDUNITS-1 is now invalid. The units must be m/s. With UDUNITS-2 unit symbol comparisons are case-sensitive but unit name comparisons are not.
The previous version of the checker is still available here.