-------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe/unsubscribe to the hdfnews mailing list, please send your request to ncsalist@ncsa.uiuc.edu with the appropriate command (e.g. subscribe hdfnews, unsubscribe hdfnews, help) in the *body* of the message. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter #34 July 15, 1998 CONTENTS ******************************* Release of hdf5-1.0.0.a2 * Visit the HDF home page * - New Features and Changes * for up-to-date information * - Platforms Tested * on HDF: * * http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ * ******************************* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Release of hdf5-1.0.0.a2 ======================== Release hdf5-1.0.0.a2, the second alpha release of the HDF5 library, is now available. The release distribution is located at: ftp://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/pub/dist/HDF5/ The main web-site for the HDF5 project is located at: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/ New Features and Changes ------------------------ * Compressed datasets are now supported. HDF5 supports user-defined compression, as well as the freely available 'deflate' method of compression. * Improved Group API. There are now query functions to determine the contents of an HDF file with no prior knowledge. In addition, groups can now share objects. * Attributes on datasets are now supported. * Revised and improved dataspace API. * Better support for data types and data type conversions, especially floating-point types. The numbered types have been removed from the API. Data types can be stored in the file as independent objects and multiple datasets can share a data type. * Support for datasets and files over 2GB in size. * Support for external dataset storage in other files. * Several changes have been made to Parallel HDF5, including support for parallel I/O of chunked datasets. * The error handling API, 'H5E', has been completed. By default, when an API function returns a failure an error stack is displayed on the standard error stream. * Improved performance. * Two of the packages have been renamed. The dataspace API has been renamed from 'H5P' to 'H5S' and the property list (template) API has been renamed from 'H5C' to 'H5P'. * More debugging support has been added. Please refer to the HDF5 User's Guide for more information on the new features in HDF5. We welcome any feedback on the current state of the library and where you would like to see it go. Platforms Tested ---------------- This release of HDF5 has been tested on the following UNIX platforms: Linux, FreeBSD, IRIX, Solaris, Digital Unix Parallel HDF5 has been tested on the IBM SP2 and SGI Origin 2000. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For questions regarding these or other HDF issues, contact: hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu