ncdf4

1.24

Interface to Unidata netCDF (Version 4 or Earlier) Format Data Files

100packages depend

483.1Kdownloads / year

–test coverage

13/13checks pass

Overview

About

Maintained by David PierceFirst published 2010-02-2419 releasesCRAN page ↗

Provides a high-level R interface to data files written using Unidata's netCDF library (version 4 or earlier), which are binary data files that are portable across platforms and include metadata information in addition to the data sets. Using this package, netCDF files (either version 4 or "classic" version 3) can be opened and data sets read in easily. It is also easy to create new netCDF dimensions, variables, and files, in either version 3 or 4 format, and manipulate existing netCDF files. This package replaces the former ncdf package, which only worked with netcdf version 3 files. For various reasons the names of the functions have had to be changed from the names in the ncdf package. The old ncdf package is still available at the URL given below, if you need to have backward compatibility. It should be possible to have both the ncdf and ncdf4 packages installed simultaneously without a problem. However, the ncdf package does not provide an interface for netcdf version 4 files.

Install

R (CRAN)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("ncdf4", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-ncdf4

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-ncdf4

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-ncdf4

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed).

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

Slowest check: 3.3 min · r-release-windows-x86_64

Code health

None

Tests · ratio 0.00

not tracked

Coverage

100%

Documentation · exports

Dependencies · direct

Check history

OK2026-04-25
12 OK · 0 NOTE · 0 WARNING · 0 ERROR · 0 FAILURE
NOTE2026-03-10
11 OK · 3 NOTE · 0 WARNING · 0 ERROR · 0 FAILURE

Documentation

READMENoVignettesNopkgdown siteNoNEWSNoCode of conductNoContributing guideNo

Examples that run: 19%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 50%
References docs: 95%

Downloads

483.1K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #646 · ~1.3K/day · ~40.3K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

25.9K30 days

96.7K90 days

483.1K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on2.7K r2u172 autocran38.9K conda_forge252 c2d4u

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

0 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Depends (0)

none

Imports (0)

none

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (0)

none

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

100direct

21indirect

and 52 more packages.

Code & Tests

Code Composition

R 5,310 (55%)C 2,666 (28%)Rd 1,698 (18%)

Code characteristics

Object systems

S31

Cyclomatic complexity: 6.0 median / 85 max
System requirements: 1 external

Test coverage

Line coverage

–

Expression

–

Tests / Examples

–

Functions

123 16 exported

Complexity

17.3 avg / 85 max

Call network

123 nodes / 193 edges

Call graph

Open call graph →

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Lowest coverage

Per-function coverage is not measured for this package yet.

People & History

People (1)

Maintainer (1)

David Pierce

Author, Maintainer

Authors (1)

David Pierce

Author, Maintainer

Package Timeline

19 releases. Pick two to compare their code metrics. R releases are shown for context.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
1.24Latest
2025-03-25 · current release · diff ↗
1.23
2024-08-17 · diff ↗
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
1.22
2023-11-28 · diff ↗
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
1.21
2023-01-07 · diff ↗
1.20
2022-12-03 · diff ↗
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
1.19
2021-12-15 · diff ↗
1.18
2021-11-26 · diff ↗
1.17.1
2021-11-06 · diff ↗
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
1.17
2019-10-23 · diff ↗

Show 23 earlier events

R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
1.16.1
2019-03-11 · diff ↗
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21
1.16
2017-04-02 · diff ↗
R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
1.15
2015-12-04 · diff ↗
1.14
2015-11-10 · diff ↗
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16
1.13
2014-09-16 · diff ↗
1.12
2014-06-19 · diff ↗
R
R 3.1.0 released · 2014-04-10
1.10
2013-11-22 · diff ↗
R
R 3.0.0 released · 2013-04-03
1.6.1
2012-04-11 · diff ↗
1.6
2012-04-10 · diff ↗
R
R 2.15.0 released · 2012-03-30
R
R 2.14.0 released · 2011-10-31
R
R 2.13.0 released · 2011-04-13
R
R 2.12.0 released · 2010-10-15
R
R 2.11.0 released · 2010-04-22
1.0
2010-02-24
R
R 2.10.0 released · 2009-10-26

Package metadata

First published: 2010-02-24
Total releases: 19 / 16 yrs
License: GPL (>= 3) OSI
Download size: 123 KB
Installed size: not tracked yet
With dependencies: not tracked yet

Appears in task views

Analysis of Spatial Data Handling and Analyzing Spatio-Temporal Data

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