describe

describe(fs[, param])
Fieldset.describe([param])

New in metview-python version 1.8.0.

Summarizes the content of a Fieldset in a compact way. The output is optimised for Jupyter notebooks.

Parameters

  • fs (Fieldset) – input fieldset

  • param (str or number) – prints a more detailed summary for the specified ecCodes shortName (str) or paramId (number)

Return type

HTML formatted output in a Jupyter notebook, otherwise a Pandas dataframe is returned (from metview-python version 1.9.0) and the summary is printed to the standard output

describe() scans the Fieldset and for each message (i.e. field) extracts a fixed set of metadata values, which are then grouped by parameter and presented in a tabular format. The parameters are identified by their ecCodes shortNames or paramIds. describe() does not try to form a hypercube(s) but simply lists the unique metadata values for each parameter.

The following example shows how the output looks in a notebook for a fieldset containing 432 surface and pressure level fields:

f = mv.read("fc.grib")
f.describe()
../../_images/describe_1.png

By specifying “q” as an argument we can get the detailed summary for specific humidity:

f.describe("q")
../../_images/describe_2.png

We can achieve the same result by using the paramId of specific humidity:

f.describe(133)