Quick start

To get started quickly, you can install pydap using EasyInstall. Simply download and run the script ez_setup.py, and then proceed to install pydap with the command:

$ easy_install dap

This will install pydap together with all the required dependencies to run it as a client. You can now open any remotely served dataset:

>>> from dap.client import open
>>> dataset = open('http://test.pydap.org/coads.nc', verbose=1)
http://test.pydap.org/coads.nc.dds
http://test.pydap.org/coads.nc.das
>>> sst = dataset.SST  # or dataset['SST']
>>> print sst.shape
(12, 90, 180)
>>> print sst[-1,20,:4]
http://test.pydap.org/coads.nc.dods?SST.SST[11:1:11][20:1:20][0:1:3]
[[[ 3.8144443   3.7166667   3.58500004  3.68599987]]]

If you want to run a server, you'll need to do:

$ easy_install "dap[server]"
$ paster create -t dap_server myserver project=My-Server
$ paster serve myserver/server.ini

Now you have a local DAP server available at http://localhost:8080. You can customize it by editing the template at myserver/template/index.tmpl, and serve data from different formats by installing plugins and responses.

For more details, please check the documentation.

Why should I use pydap?

It's free. It's lightweight and fast. It's extensible and hackable. It can serve data from netCDF files, practically any relational database and more. It's easy to use and to get started. You can run it as a standalone server or behind Apache using CGI, FastCGI or SCGI. You can even run it with IIS, if you want.