html_url,issue_url,id,node_id,user,created_at,updated_at,author_association,body,reactions,performed_via_github_app,issue https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/1681#issuecomment-341245412,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/1681,341245412,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDM0MTI0NTQxMg==,1217238,2017-11-01T21:16:46Z,2017-11-01T21:16:46Z,MEMBER,"Yes, I think that's correct.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,270440308 https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/1681#issuecomment-341238029,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/1681,341238029,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDM0MTIzODAyOQ==,1217238,2017-11-01T20:49:50Z,2017-11-01T20:49:50Z,MEMBER,"Which netCDF library were you using? I don't think netCDF as a file format has ever supported maps as attributes. For example, looking at [the spec](http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/docs/file_format_specifications.html), attributes can be a variable-length array of any scalar type (this is specifically for netCDF3, but the rules for netCDF4 are similar): ``` attr = name nc_type nelems [values ...] nc_type = NC_BYTE | NC_CHAR | NC_SHORT | NC_INT | NC_FLOAT | NC_DOUBLE ``` In practice, I believe Python APIs (including xarray's various netCDF backends) usually decode single values to scalars.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,270440308