Common Data Format (CDF) is a conceptual data abstraction for storing
multi-dimensional data sets. The basic component of CDF is a software
programming interface that is a device independent view of the CDF data
model. The application developer is insulated from the actual physical
file format for reasons of conceptual simplicity, device independence,
and future expandability. CDF files created on any given platform can
be transported to any other platform on to which CDF is ported and used
with any CDF tools or layered applications. A more detailed introduction
to CDF can be found in the CDF User's Guide.

A comparison between CDF, netCDF, HDF and HDF5 is available at
<http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/html/FAQ.html>.

WWW: https://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/