This is a Python implementation of the Data Access Protocol, a scientific
protocol for data access developed by the OPeNDAP team
(http://opendap.org). This implementation is developed from scratch, following
the latest specification of the protocol (DAP 2.0 Draft Community Standard
2005/04/27) and based on experience with OPeNDAP servers on the wild.
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Using this module one can access hundreds of scientific datasets from Python
programs, accessing data in an efficient, transparent and pythonic way. Arrays
are manipulated like normal multi-dimensional arrays (like numpy.array, e.g.),
with the fundamental difference that data is downloaded on-the-fly when a
variable is sliced. Sequential data can be filtered on the server side before
being downloaded, saving bandwidth and time.
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The module also implements a DAP server, allowing datasets from a multitude of
formats (netCDF, Matlab, CSV, GrADS/GRIB files, SQL RDBMS) to be served on the
internet. The server specifies a plugin API for supporting new data formats in
an easy way. The DAP server is implemented as a WSGI application (see PEP 333),
running on a variety of servers, and can be combined with WSGI middleware to
support authentication, gzip compression and much more.
