v5.0.0

netCDF-Java

Version 5.0.0

The NetCDF-Java/Common Data Model (CDM) library version 5.0.0 release was announced on July 29th, 2019. This is a major release and includes many bug fixes, enhancements, and a variety of updates to 3rd party libraries which include security updates. For details on the major changes in this release, please visit https://docs.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf-java/5.0/userguide/upgrade_to_50.html. The netCDF-java development team recommends this upgrade to anyone using the netCDF-Java or its associated artifacts. If you encounter issues while upgrading, please contact us with your report (see how below). We also released v4.6.14, which includes security fixes, but likely does not include the bug fixes addressed here, and does not include any of the new features. For more information on the v4.6.14 release, please visit https://github.com/Unidata/thredds/releases/tag/v4.6.14.

Notices

Special note about netCDF-Java

The v5.0.0 release is the current stable version of netCDF-Java. At least Java 8 is required. We build and test against both OracleJDK and OpenJDK 8. Initial testing using our artifacts running against OpenJDK 11 are promising and so far we have not had any reports of issues. We are working towards building with OpenJDK 11, although we currently only use Java 8 features.

Java Web Start

Java Web Start has been deprecated as of Java 9, and has been removed in Java 11, which is the Long-term Release post-Java 8. As of netCDF-Java v5.0.0, we no longer publish the Java Web Start files netCDFtools.jnlp and netCDFtoolsExtraJars.jnlp.

Versioning

Prior to version 5, the netCDF-Java/CDM library and the THREDDS Data Server (TDS) have been built and released together. Starting with version 5, these two packages have been decoupled, allowing new features or bug fixes to be implemented in each package separately, and released independently. Because of the relationship between the two projects, we plan to create a workflow in which pull requests against the netcdf-java repository will be tested against the TDS codebase and test suite. Failure of these tests will not necessarily stand as a blocker, but rather will allow us to identify issues in the TDS before they arise.

Downloads

Artifact	Description
netCDFAll.jar	The netCDF library implements the full CDM model, including all other jar dependencies. [md5] [sha1]
toolsUI.jar	The toolsUI.jar contains everything to run the ToolsUI application. [md5] [sha1]

Documentation

• NetCDF-Java documentation

Changes

Please visit https://docs.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf-java/5.0/userguide/upgrade_to_50.html.

For a full list of changes between netCDF-Java 4.x and v5.0.0, you will need to run the following git command locally, as the commit history is too large to show through the github interface:

git log --oneline master...3b25fee

There are over 2600 commits in v5.0 since development began. Note: We do not intend on having such a long or complex development cycle in the future.

Real-world use by the user community is integral to the process of creating and refining these libraries. Please direct all potential security issues directly to Unidata using the address security@unidata.ucar.edu. Please send all other potential issues to the development team via the the user community mailing lists (netcdf-java@unidata.ucar.edu), through the Unidata support system (support-netcdf-java@unidata.ucar.edu), or on the netCDF-Java GitHub issue tracker.