xarray.Variable (original) (raw)

A netcdf-like variable consisting of dimensions, data and attributes which describe a single Array. A single Variable object is not fully described outside the context of its parent Dataset (if you want such a fully described object, use a DataArray instead).

The main functional difference between Variables and numpy arrays is that numerical operations on Variables implement array broadcasting by dimension name. For example, adding an Variable with dimensions (‘time’,) to another Variable with dimensions (‘space’,) results in a new Variable with dimensions (‘time’, ‘space’). Furthermore, numpy reduce operations like mean or sum are overwritten to take a “dimension” argument instead of an “axis”.

Variables are light-weight objects used as the building block for datasets. They are more primitive objects, so operations with them provide marginally higher performance than using DataArrays. However, manipulating data in the form of a Dataset or DataArray should almost always be preferred, because they can use more complete metadata in context of coordinate labels.