The most distinguishing feature of both netCDF and PnetCDF is the <em>bi-modal</em> programming interface. An application creating a file will first enter <em>define mode</em>, in which it can describe all attributes, dimensions, types and structures of variables. The program will then exit "define mode" and enter <em>data mode</em>, in which it actually performs I/O. We'll see that often in the following examples. This "declaration-before-use" model can be a little restrictive, but does allow for some aggressive optimization when carrying out I/O.
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