cfdm.core.FieldAncillary

---

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

Bases: cfdm.core.abstract.propertiesdata.PropertiesData

A field ancillary construct of the CF data model.

The field ancillary construct provides metadata which are distributed over the same sampling domain as the field itself. For example, if a data variable holds a variable retrieved from a satellite instrument, a related ancillary data variable might provide the uncertainty estimates for those retrievals (varying over the same spatiotemporal domain).

The field ancillary construct consists of an array of the ancillary data, which is zero-dimensional or which depends on one or more of the domain axes, and properties to describe the data. It is assumed that the data do not depend on axes of the domain which are not spanned by the array, along which the values are implicitly propagated. CF-netCDF ancillary data variables correspond to field ancillary constructs. Note that a field ancillary construct is constrained by the domain definition of the parent field construct but does not contribute to the domain’s definition, unlike, for instance, an auxiliary coordinate construct or domain ancillary construct.

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': 'altitude'}

data: data_like, optional

Set the data.

A data_like object is any object that can be converted to a Data object, i.e. numpy array_like objects, Data objects, and cfdm.core instances that contain Data objects.

The data also may be set after initialisation with the set_data method.

source: optional

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

All other parameters, apart from copy, are ignored and their values are instead inferred from source by assuming that it has the FieldAncillary 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 FieldAncillary instance then cfdm.core.FieldAncillary(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.

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.

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.