.. pyfdb documentation master file
    :author: ECMWF
    :date: 2025-11-10

FDB documentation
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.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2
   :caption: Contents:
   :hidden:

   fdb/index
   pyfdb/index
   indices_and_tables

The :ref:`FDB <FDB_Introduction>` is part of `ECMWF <https://www.ecmwf.int>`__’s high‑performance data infrastructure and stores
different file formats, such as GRIB, ODB, BUFR. In case of GRIB, it stores
each message as a field, indexes it by meteorological metadata (e.g.,
`parameter`, `level`, `date/time`), and serves recent outputs to
post‑processing tasks and users. In operational use, FDB acts as a hot cache in
front of the long‑term MARS archive, enabling fast access to newly generated
data. 

:ref:`PyFDB <PyFDB_Introduction>` is the Python interface to the `FDB
<https://github.com/ecmwf/fdb>`__, a domain‑specific object store designed to
efficiently archive, index, list, and retrieve GRIB fields produced by
numerical weather prediction workflows. It provides a thin, idiomatic Python
layer over the `FDB` client library installed on your system, so you can drive
FDB operations directly from Python scripts and notebooks.