How are the beginning and end periods of the data contained in a CM2.x output file encoded into the file names?

The CM2.x model output file names are of the form
varname_table.starttime-endtime.nc
where
varname
represents the IPCC specified variable name,
table
is a shorthand version of the IPCC Table identifier (e.g., A1, A2, A3, A4, O1), and
starttime
and
endtime
are coded versions of the first and last time levels contained in the netCDF file. The length of the starttime and endtime character strings vary depending on the frequency of the data sampling contained in the file.

For example, if you were to look at a file containing monthly mean time series of the variable tas (IPCC Table A1a) for the time period extending from January of model year 1 to December of model year 280, the file name would be
tas_A1.000101-028012.nc
with the months and years being encoded as...
000101-028012
YYYYMM-YYYYMM

For a time series of Table A2a tas daily values, two additional digits identify the days, so the name of a file containing daily tas output from 1 January of model year 61 to 31 December of model year 65 would be
tas_A2.00610101-00651231.nc
where the date code is of the form...
00610101-00651231
YYYYMMDD-YYYYMMDD

Similarly, two additional digits are required to identify the hours in data files containing output sampled at three hour intervals. So all 3 hour periods during years years 66 to 70 would be included in a file named...
tas_A3.0066010100-0070123123.nc
where the date code is of the form...
0066010100-0070123123
YYYYMMDDHH-YYYYMMDDHH

Note that the starttime and endtime year numbers are always four digits in length and the month, day and hour values are always 2 digits in length, with leading zeros included as needed.

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