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/2251#issuecomment-417008887,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2251,417008887,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQxNzAwODg4Nw==,1217238,2018-08-29T16:06:28Z,2018-08-29T16:06:28Z,MEMBER,I filed a bug report for netCDF4-Python: https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf4-python/issues/841,"{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,335608017
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2251#issuecomment-416994400,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2251,416994400,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQxNjk5NDQwMA==,90008,2018-08-29T15:24:07Z,2018-08-29T15:24:07Z,CONTRIBUTOR,"@shoyer, @fmaussion thank you for your answers. I'm OK with this issue being closed. I'm no expert on netcdf4, so I don't know if I could express the issue in a concise manner there. ","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,335608017
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2251#issuecomment-400428831,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2251,400428831,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQwMDQyODgzMQ==,1217238,2018-06-26T19:08:57Z,2018-06-26T19:08:57Z,MEMBER,"If I remember correctly, netCDF intentionally does not support multi-dimensional array attributes. I'm not sure why it silently changes shape, though. An error message would seem much more user-friendly to me. Possibly this is worth raising on the netCDF4 issue tracker: https://github.com/unidata/netcdf4-python","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,335608017
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2251#issuecomment-400415380,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2251,400415380,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQwMDQxNTM4MA==,90008,2018-06-26T18:24:35Z,2018-06-26T18:24:35Z,CONTRIBUTOR,"@fmaussion, I am in fact now storing them as coordinates as a work around.
in fact, for my particular application, I think the array was meant more as the time the particular index was taken at, in which case a coordinate seems perfect, that said, I am mutating the coordinate array through data acquisition.

I think an acceptable solution would be to state this limitation in the description of what attributes are.

in learning how to use xarray, I ran into the fact that boolean variables cannot be stored in netcdf4, and the array limitation reported. I worked around the boolean problem by replacing it with a more descriptive (and ultimately more forward compatible) string.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,335608017
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2251#issuecomment-400411869,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2251,400411869,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQwMDQxMTg2OQ==,10050469,2018-06-26T18:12:45Z,2018-06-26T18:16:53Z,MEMBER,"> I have some metadata that is in the form of numpy arrays.

The short answer is: storing arrays (or other objects) as attributes is not easy. When you do so, xarray has to convert them at serialization, and the roundtrip conserving the shape cannot be achieved because it isn't available in the datamodel of NetCDF.

What is it you are storing as 2D arrays? Would a coordinate variable be an option? 
","{""total_count"": 1, ""+1"": 1, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,335608017