What is Common Data Format (CDF)?

Self-describing data format for the storage of scalar and multidimensional data in a platform- and discipline-independent way

Scientific data management package (CDF Library) allows application developers to manage these data arrays

Transparent access to data and meta-data through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

Built-in support for data compression (gZip, RLE, Huffman) and automatic data uncompression, and checksum

Provide read/write interfaces for C, FORTRAN, Java, Perl, C#/Visual Basic, IDL, MATLAB (and user-supplied software, e.g., Python, Sybase, mySQL)

[Download the latest released version (V3.7.1)]

Please email gsfc-cdf-support@lists.nasa.gov with any CDF-related questions (both technical and policy-related).

NOTE: We are considering turning off our Solaris SPARC server and our Open VMS server is currently offline, both used for CDF development. Who is still depending on our continued support for these platforms? Please let us know. Thanks.
May/29/2019: CDF version V3.7.1 is released. Read Changes made in this and previous releases. For the TT2000 data type for time, read our requirements analysis and development approach for more details.

MATLAB: CDF distributed modules based on the latest CDF V3.7.1 version MATLAB Patch

A suite of user-provided software can interact with CDF. Please check them out here.
CDFsupport email address was changed to gsfc-cdf-support@lists.nasa.gov