issue_comments

Sounds good, but it seems like you're correct that it's a netcdf/netcdf4-python problem here, so I'll defer to others as to what the best changes to default settings would be to avoid the segfaults

ah sorry, didn't see the request for ncdump.

``` $ ncdump test_str_list.h5 netcdf test_str_list { dimensions: phony_dim_0 = 2 ; phony_dim_1 = 2 ; variables: string pairs(phony_dim_0, phony_dim_1) ; data:

pairs = "2020010120200201 ", NIL, "2020010120200301 ", NIL ; } `` Interesting that mypairsseems different than yours without the obvious trailing garbage. Also, when I run your first code snippet, I have different areas that are garbled, with bothNULLPADandnumpy_S` displaying garbage

``` netcdf test_str_list_attr {

// global attributes: string :NULLPAD = "20200101�<T��\007", "20200201", "20200101�=T��\007", "20200301" ; string :NULLTERM = "20200101", "20200201", "20200101", "20200301" ; string :numpy_S = "20200101", "20200201\1775T��\007", "20200101", "20200301�3T��\007" ; string :numpy_O = "20200101", "20200201", "20200101", "20200301" ; } ```

sure! here it is:

bash $ h5dump test_str_list.h5 HDF5 "test_str_list.h5" { GROUP "/" { DATASET "pairs" { DATATYPE H5T_STRING { STRSIZE 8; STRPAD H5T_STR_NULLPAD; CSET H5T_CSET_ASCII; CTYPE H5T_C_S1; } DATASPACE SIMPLE { ( 2, 2 ) / ( 2, 2 ) } DATA { (0,0): "20200101", "20200201", (1,0): "20200101", "20200301" } } } }

(and just to include the specific traceback that hapened now, in case my versions are different from what I showed):

xr.show_versions