H4toH5 Conversion Library

Current Version: 2.1

Description

The H4toH5 Conversion Library is a C library that converts individual objects from an HDF4 file to equivalent objects in an HDF5 file. The conversion follows the default mapping defined in the specification document, Mapping HDF4 Objects to HDF5 Objects:

  /HDF5/doc/ADGuide/H4toH5Mapping.pdf

The H4toH5 library uses both the HDF4 and HDF5 libraries.

Six basic HDF4 objects can be converted to the corresponding HDF5 objects:

SDS
Image (including GR, RI8, and RI24)
Vdata
Vgroup
Palette
Annotation

In each case, the data, attributes, and auxiliary objects (such as HDF4 dimension scales) are converted, as well. Additional functions convert sets of objects. Options to the API control some aspects of the conversion, including the name and location of the object in the HDF5 file.

This library is intended to be a toolkit to assist the construction of conversion utilities tailored to specific applications and data products. The application will convert objects from HDF4 to create the desired HDF5 file. In many cases, the application can use the h4toh5 library to perform default or custom conversions of selected objects. in other cases, the h4toh5 library can provide an example or template for the application-specific conversion.

Usage

The H4toh5 library is a C library which links to the HDF4 and HDF5 libraries.

h4toh5 and h5toh4

h4toh5 is a command line utility that converts a single HDF4 file to an equivalent HDF5 file. All the objects in the file are converted following the mapping specification (Mapping HDF4 Objects to HDF5 Objects).

h5toh4 is a command line utility for converting all supported objects and pathways to produce an HDF4 file.