A PDF version of this document is available. You may also use
anonymous ftp to access PDF files of most of
the OPeNDAP documentation.
The Distributed Oceanographic Data System is a system that allows you to access data over the internet,
from programs that weren't originally designed for that purpose, as
well as some that were.
With DODS, you access data using a URL, just like a URL you would use
to access a web page. However, before you request any data, you need
to know how to request it in a form your browser can handle. DODS
data is stored in binary form, and by default, it is transmitted that
way, too.
The other problem with a DODS URL is that a single URL might point to
an archive containing 50 megabytes of data. You rarely want to
request the whole thing without knowing a little about it. DODS
provides sophisticated sub-sampling capabilities, but you need to know
a little bit about the data in order to use them.
So here's what to do if someone gives you a raw URL, and
says there's some DODS data on the other end.
Tom Sgouros, 2004/07/07