Jeff Whitaker

In retrospect, I perhaps should not have made this the default behavior. I don't think it's wise to change it now though, since too much code relies on it. However,...

Why is it so bad to get a masked array back when the slice contains missing data, and a numpy array when it does not? numpy.ma is pretty much a...

There is always a _FillValue - if it's not set explicitly, then the C library uses the type-dependent default value. If you create a variable and don't write any data...

The only potential option I see for changing the default behavior is to always return a masked array.

The point is that whether or not it is set explicitly, there is an expectation that values equal to the _FillValue are missing.

yes and yes. _FillValue is meant for pre-filling as yet unwritten data. missing_value is meant to indicate invalid or missing data. See https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/docs/BestPractices.html.

If the need is to know exactly what kind of array the module will return, the I propose we always return a masked array by default. If you always want...

Don't think I'm ready to change the default yet - still seems to me that masked arrays are what most people want. I will go ahead and merge pull request...

All variable data is now returned as a masked array by default, even coordinate variables. You could over-ride the default behaviour with your own subclass, for example ```python import netCDF4...

I would consider changing the default to return numpy arrays, it's just that I'm not yet convinced that would be the best choice. It still seems to me that most...