cfdm.core.Field

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class cfdm.core.Field(properties=None, source=None, copy=True, _use_data=True)

Bases: cfdm.core.mixin.fielddomain.FieldDomain, cfdm.core.abstract.propertiesdata.PropertiesData

A field construct of the CF data model.

The field construct is central to the CF data model, and includes all the other constructs. A field corresponds to a CF-netCDF data variable with all of its metadata. All CF-netCDF elements are mapped to a field construct or some element of the CF field construct. The field construct contains all the data and metadata which can be extracted from the file using the CF conventions.

The field construct consists of a data array and the definition of its domain (that describes the locations of each cell of the data array), field ancillary constructs containing metadata defined over the same domain, and cell method constructs to describe how the cell values represent the variation of the physical quantity within the cells of the domain. The domain is defined collectively by the following constructs of the CF data model: domain axis, dimension coordinate, auxiliary coordinate, cell measure, coordinate reference and domain ancillary constructs. All of the constructs contained by the field construct are optional.

The field construct also has optional properties to describe aspects of the data that are independent of the domain. These correspond to some netCDF attributes of variables (e.g. units, long_name and standard_name), and some netCDF global file attributes (e.g. history and institution).

New in version (cfdm): 1.7.0

Initialisation

Parameters

properties: dict, optional

Set descriptive properties. The dictionary keys are property names, with corresponding values.

Properties may also be set after initialisation with the set_properties and set_property methods.

Parameter example:

properties={'standard_name': 'air_temperature'}

source: optional

Convert source, which can be any type of object, to a Field instance.

All other parameters, apart from copy, are ignored and their values are instead inferred from source by assuming that it has the Field API. Any parameters that can not be retrieved from source in this way are assumed to have their default value.

Note that if x is also a Field instance then cfdm.core.Field(source=x) is equivalent to x.copy().

copy: bool, optional

If True (the default) then deep copy the input parameters prior to initialisation. By default the parameters are not deep copied.

Inspection

Attributes

construct_type

Return a description of the construct type.

Properties

Methods

del_property	Remove a property.
get_property	Return a property.
has_property	Whether a property has been set.
set_property	Set a property.
properties	Return all properties.
clear_properties	Remove all properties.
del_properties	Remove properties.
set_properties	Set properties.

Data

Methods

del_data	Remove the data.
get_data	Return the data.
has_data	Whether or not the construct has data.
set_data	Set the data of the field construct.
del_data_axes	Removes the keys of the axes spanned by the construct data.
get_data_axes	Gets the keys of the axes spanned by the construct data.
has_data_axes	Whether the axes spanned by the construct data have been set.
set_data_axes	Sets the axes spanned by the construct data.

Attributes

data	Return the data.
dtype	Data-type of the data elements.
ndim	The number of data dimensions.
shape	A tuple of the data array’s dimension sizes.
size	The number elements in the data.

Metadata constructs

Methods

del_construct	Remove a metadata construct.
get_construct	Return a metadata construct.
has_construct	Whether a metadata construct exists.
set_construct	Set a metadata construct.

Attributes

constructs

Return the metadata constructs.

Domain

Methods

get_domain

Return the domain.

Attributes

domain

Return the domain.

Miscellaneous

Methods

copy	Return a deep copy.
has_bounds	Whether or not there are cell bounds.

Special

Methods

__deepcopy__

Called by the copy.deepcopy function.

Docstring substitutions

Methods

_docstring_special_substitutions	Return the special docstring substitutions.
_docstring_substitutions	Returns the substitutions that apply to methods of the class.
_docstring_package_depth	Returns the class {{package}} substitutions package depth.
_docstring_method_exclusions	Returns method names excluded in the class substitutions.