ferret: dimension naming?

[Gene-Hua Crystal Ng <gng@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Is dimension name not the same as axis name?  I am trying to create a
netCDF file in which I have dimensions "lon", "lat", and "time".  I
thought I was doing this by specifying axes using:

yes? def axis/x=1:1:1 lon
yes? def axis/y=1:1:1 lat
yes? def axis/t=1:100:1 time

and then specifying my grids with these, etc....

However, I then get an error from nco_inq_dimid() claiming that there does
not exist any dimension named 'lon', etc in my file.  But when I look at
my data with ferret, it seems that my x, y, and t axes are indeed named
'lon', 'lat', and 'time', respectively.  Is there a distinction between
dimension and axis names?  If so, how do I specify the dimension names??

Thanks,
Crystal