General File-Naming Convention for Earth Science Datasets

From Ocean Teacher Library

Introduction and Background

The following is a DRAFT file-naming convention for datasets used in OceanTeacher, and a recommendation for consideration by IODE training activities and general projects. It is based on years of experience working with large numbers of datasets in classroom settings and in the compilation of regional marine atlases. Both situations often lead to confusion about the identities of files, due to name similarities and to the proliferation of "child" files derived from other files by sequential processing steps.

General

Give as much detail as possible - but only the Parameter is absolutely mandatory
Use familiar, intelligible and simple tokens for each filename section
Use only numbers and lower-case letters
Use an underscore (not a hyphen; not a space) to separate filename sections
Use no special characters, such as &, -, +, %, etc.
SPECIAL NOTE: Filenames inherited from other comprehensive naming conventions should usually be left unchanged (or perhaps slightly augmented), for example the MODIS filenames containing coded metadata details

Filename Sections in the Order They Should Appear

The first 3 sections are easily standardized words, numbers and acronyms
The final 4 sections are a bit less easily standardized terms

Parameter or Object

Examples: temp, sal, relhum, airt, phos, current_u, current_v, ssh, sst, waves, secchi, par, kd490, etc.
Examples: coast(line), traj(ectory), depth, height, grat(icule), aoi(area of interest box), etc.
Examples: multiple entry indicates multiple parameters, e.g. airt_relhum_windv
Optional: add "_img" if it contains an image of data, and not data (unnecessary if the filename extension is obvious, e.g. jpg or png)
Optional: add "_grid" or "_grids" if it contains gridded data, e.g. currentv_grid, temp_grid, ssh_grid
Optional: add "_cons" if it contains contour lines from a gridded analysis, e.g. phos_cons
Optional: add "_vecs" if it contains vector arrows for wind, current, or motion, e.g. current_vecs
Optional: add "_anal" if it contains an analysis product, such as a table from Ocean Data View's surface mode tables

Date and/or Time

Can be climatological, specific time or specific interval
For climatologies use letters/abbreviations for months and annu for annual average; do not use season names
Examples: 2005, amj (April-June), jul (July), annu, 20050315 (ISO standard format)
Double entry indicates time interval, e.g. 200301_200303 (jfm of 2003)

Depth/Height

Examples: surf, 0m, 100m, bot(tom), 700mbar - sense (depth or height) taken from the parameter
Double entry indicates depth/height interval, e.g. 50m_100m

Location

Examples: nami/namibia, afr/africa, atl, ind/indo, pac, arct/arctic, ant/antarct, balt, black, casp, bbeng, carib, med/medit, natl/noratl, satl/soatl, spac/sopac, glo/glob/global, soc/sooc, namer, samer, eu, asia, seasia, au/aus, etc.

Originator

Marine program, project or model that originally produced the data (to include major synthesis activities)
Examples: woce, modis, woa05, wod05, czcs, seawis, argo, gpd, hycom, mercator, etc.

Provider

Agency or website where the data have been re-formattted, re-packaged, re-distributed or downloaded
Examples: nvods, coriolis, ingrid, colorweb, pangaea, oceanportal, poet, wist, etc.
Omit if identical to the Originator section

Extra

Completely optional, as appropriate and necessary to identify the data
Examples: Step - step1, step2, step3; child product files resulting from sequential processing
Examples: Satellite - lev1, lev2, lev3, lev4; using standard Remote Sensing Product Levels
Examples: Satellite - processing algorithm name, e.g. "gordon" for optical properties of sea water
In Situ examples: raw, anal(yzed), mean, std (standard deviation), flag(ged), unflag(unflagged), etc.
Format examples: hdf, flt, grb, etc.; only needed if the file is compressed, i.e. zip, tar, gz, bz2, etc.
Software - name of the program used to create the file, e.g. surfer, saga, arcgis, odv, etc.
Resolution - indicate the scale for map objects, when important; for example "250k" could indicate a 1:250000 version of a coastline file
Gridsize - indicate the size of the grid cells; for example "0.1deg" indicates grid cells are 0.1 degree on each side

Filename Examples

ssh_vals_annu_100m_glo_woa05_ingrid_anal.nc
airt_relhum_grids_20050101_500mbar_namer.flt
- airt_relhum_grids_20050101_500mbar_namer.hdr - companion header file for the above flt file
chloro_jfm_surf_glo_modis_colorweb_lev3_hdf.bz2
coastline_namibia_wvs_gebco2003_250k.shp

Special Considerations for Files Specifying Aggregates: Projects, Views, Settings or Properties

Many analysis and display programs, such as GIS software and Ocean Data View, allow the user to create complex graphical analyses containing more than one variable or requiring numerous special settings. The detailed specifications for these views can be contained in "views" (in ODV), project files (in many GIS programs), settings or properties (in Saga), etc. In such cases, because these aggregates often contain multiple variables, begin with a "Product Type" specification, followed by whatever seems reasonable to identify the aggregate, and then the remainder of the name string (as above). Some examples would be:

Examples for GIS Projects: map_osd_[rest of name], map_ctd_[rest of name], map_coastal_features_[rest of name], map_relief_[rest of name], i
Examples for Saga properties files: props_[full name of shape], props_[full name of grid]

Aggregate Name Examples

props_airt_relhum_grids_20050101_500mbar_namer_coads_nvod.sprm
map_namibia_planning.sprj

Subsections of this Article

	Pagename	Short title	Description
GTSPP file naming convention	GTSPP file naming convention	GTSPP file naming convention	Convention for GTSPP netCDF file naming

Information about this article

Short title: File-Naming Convention

Description: This section presents a simple method for file-naming, aimed at long-term preservation of file sources, content and basic history

Expertise level: beginner

Author: Murray.Brown

Approval status: approved

Approved by: Murray.Brown

Last change: 2010-8-20

Subsection of: Numerical Data

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