Data Formats

Complex scientific computations typically required specialized output to standardized data formats. The main choices available are covered on this page.

Text formats

The simplest data format is human-readable text format.

Native binary format

Another simple data format is the machine's native binary representation. By comparison to text, binary data is more concise and precise.

Platform independent formats

It is useful to define data formats that do not depend on the characteristics of a specific computer. Thus a simulation can be run on some mainframe and then analyzed on a workstation without having to worry about data translation.

HDF

The Hierarchical Data Format has been developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CDF

The Common Data Format has been developed by the National Space Science Data Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

NetCDF

The Network Common Data Format at the Unidata Program Center in Boulder, Colorado.