By default, nc_create_empty.m creates netCDF files in the classic format, which restricts the file to less than 2 GB. Since netCDF 3.6.0 was released, this restriction has been removed, but requires an additional mode to be supplied to the underlying nc_create function. The m-file nc_create_empty.m can take advantage of this with an optional second mode parameter, as the example below describes.

>> mode = bitor ( nc_clobber_mode, nc_64bit_offset_mode );
>> nc_create_empty ( 'test.nc', mode )
>> nc_dump ( 'test.nc' )
netcdf test.nc {



}
    

Note that you cannot see any difference via the output of nc_dump, yet now you can create or grow files in excess of 2 GB.