re: https://github.com/zarr-developers/zarr-specs/issues/41
After discussions with the Zarr community, it was decided to
convert to a new representation of the NCZarr meta-data extensions: version 2.
These extensions store information necessary to mapping the Zarr data model
to the netcdf-4 data model.
The basic change is to remove the NCZarr specific objects: .nczarr, .nczgroup, .nczarray, and .nczattr.
The contents of these objects is moved into the corresponding existing Zarr objects as special keys. The mapping is as follows:
* ''.nczarr'' => ''/.zgroup/_NCZARR_SUPERBLOCK_''
* ''.nczgroup => ''.zgroup/_NCZARR_GROUP_''
* ''.nczarray => ''.zarray/_NCZARR_ARRAY_''
* ''.nczattr => ''.zattr/_NCZARR_ATTR_''
Backward compatibility is maintained by looking for the object ''/.nczarr''
and if found, then assuming that the dataset is in the older version 1 format.
This compatibility only supports reading of such version 1 datasets.
Documentation and test cases are also added.
Misc. Other Changes:
1. The json parsing code was added to the general library instead of nczarr only (ncjson.c, ncjson.h).
2. Improved support for different platform paths by allowing conversion
to a single common path representation.
3. Add some new error codes.
4. Modify nccopy usage to mention the new chunking specification.
Primary Fixes:
* Add a whole variable optimization -- used in the rare case that nc_get/put_vara covers the whole of a variable and the variable has a single chunk.
* Fix chunking error when stride causes whole chunks to be skipped.
* Fix some memory leaks
* Add test cases
* Add one performance test to nczarr_test/. This uses the timer utils from unit_test: timer_utils.[ch].
* Move ncdumpchunks utility from ncdump to nczarr_test
Misc. Other Changes:
* Make check for aws libraries conditional on --enable-nczarr-s3
* Remove all but one bm tests from nczarr_test until they are working.
* Remove another dependency on HDF5 from supposedly non-HDF5 specific code; specifically hdf5_log_hdf5.
* Make the BAIL2 macro be hdf5 specific and replace elsewhere with an HDF5 independent equivalent.
* Move hdf5cache.c to libsrc4/nc4cache.c because it is used by nczarr.
* Modify unit_tests so that some of them are run even if using Windows.
* Misc. small bug fixes and refactors and memory leaks.
* Rename some conflicting tests for cmake.
* Attempted to make nc_perf work with cmake and failed.
Primary changes:
* Add an improved cache system to speed up performance.
* Fix NCZarr to properly handle scalar variables.
Misc. Related Changes:
* Added unit tests for extendible hash and for the generic cache.
* Add config parameter to set size of the NCZarr cache.
* Add initial performance tests but leave them unused.
* Add CRC64 support.
* Move location of ncdumpchunks utility from /ncgen to /ncdump.
* Refactor auth support.
Misc. Unrelated Changes:
* More cleanup of the S3 support
* Add support for S3 authentication in .rc files: HTTP.S3.ACCESSID and HTTP.S3.SECRETKEY.
* Remove the hashkey from the struct OBJHDR since it is never used.
