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getvardims

Returns a list of dimension names for the given variable.

Prototype

	function getvardims (
		var       
	)

	return_val [*] :  string

Arguments

var

Any NCL variable.

Description

This function returns a list of dimension names for a given NCL variable. If a dimension is not named, then this function returns the default missing value for a string for that dimension.

See Also

getfiledimsizes, getfilevardimsizes, getfilevardims, getfilevartypes, getvaratts, getfilevardims, addfile

Examples

Example 1

The following script: 

  w = (/(/ (/1.,2.,3/), (/4.,5.,6./) /), (/ (/6.,5.,4/), (/3.,2.,1./) /)/)
  w!0 = "z"
  w!1 = "y"
  w!2 = "x"
  dimNames = getvardims(w)
  print(dimNames)

will result the following output: 

Variable: dimNames
Type: string                    
Total Size: 12 bytes
            3 values
Number of Dimensions: 1
Dimensions and sizes:   [3]
Coordinates: 
Number Of Attributes: 1
  _FillValue :  missing

(0)     z
(1)     y
(2)     x

Example 2

Assume you have a netCDF file where "ncdump -h 0360-01.nc" yields: 

  netcdf 0360-01 {
  dimensions:
    time = UNLIMITED ; // (1 currently)
    nlon = 320 ;
    nlat = 384 ;
    z_t = 40 ;
    z_w = 40 ;
    tracers = 2 ;
    nchar = 80 ;
    d2 = 2 ;
    [SNIP]

To retrieve the dimension names from the file, you can use the following code snippet. In the following, the reference to the file (here, f) is also a variable. 

  f     = addfile ("0360-01.nc" , "r")
  dNames= getvardims(f)  
  dSizes= getfiledimsizes(f)  
  print (dNames+"   "+dSizes)
This produces the output: 
   time       1
   nlon     320
   nlat     384
   z_t       40
   z_w       40
   tracers    2
   nchar     80
   d2         2

Example 3

Retrieve the dimension names of a variable and use these returned names to reorder (reshape) the variable. Note from Example 1 that getvardims returns a variable of type "string". To use these "string" names for reordering, a variable string reference must be used. This is accomplished by enclosing a string with dollar signs ($). 

   dims = getvardims(x)    ; dimension names
   rank = dimsizes(dims)
   if (rank.eq.3) then
       xNew = dim_rmvmean_Wrap($dims(1)$|:,$dims(2)$|:,$dims(0)$|:)
   end if

   if (rank.eq.4) then
       xNew = dim_rmvmean_Wrap($dims(1)$|:,$dims(2)$|:,$dims(3)$|:,$dims(0)$|:)
   end if

   printVarSummary(xNew)