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                            Newsletter #76
                           February 24, 2004

CONTENTS
                                            *******************************
. Release of HDF5-1.6.2                     *                             *
  - New Features and Changes                * Visit the HDF home page     *
  - Platforms Tested                        * for up-to-date information  *
  - Known Problems                          *                             *
                                            *  http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/  *
                                            *                             *
                                            *******************************

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Release of HDF5-1.6.2
=====================

HDF5-1.6.2 is now available for download from the NCSA HDF5 home 
page at:

    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/

The HDF5 documentation is included in the source code and can also
be accessed from:

    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/doc/

This is a fully tested release.  The configuration features supported
in this release can be viewed at:

    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/release/SuppConfigFeats.html

The RELEASE.txt file in the source code contains detailed information
about this release:
  
 ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF/HDF5/current/src/unpacked/release_docs/RELEASE.txt

For information on functions that have changed in HDF5-1.6.2, see:

    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/Changes.html


New Features and Changes
------------------------

The major new features and changes in HDF5-1.6.2 are:

  o HDF5 Fortran APIs are supported for MAC OS X with the IBM XL
    Fortran compiler version 8.1 Beta.

  o New Functions have been added to HDF5 for C and F90:  H5Iget_ref, 
    H5Iinc_ref and H5Idec_ref.
    
  o The HDF5 C and C++ libraries have been ported to Linux64 Red Hat 8.

  o The HDF5 C, C++ and Fortran sequential libraries, and C and Fortran 
    parallel libraries are available for Altix (Linux ia64). 

  o For Parallel HDF5, the "h5pcc" and "h5pfc" have been added for
    compiling applications.

  o This release contains numerous bug fixes, including:
 
    - Fixed several errors in B-tree deletion code which could cause a
      B-tree (used with groups and chunked datasets) to become corrupt
      with the right sequence of deleted objects.

    - Fixed several problems with variable length datatypes.

    - Fixed a couple of problems with hyperslab selections. 

    - Fixed bug where scalar dataspaces for attributes were reporting as
      simple dataspaces.

    - Fixed various floating-point conversion problems, including a
      change which could corrupt data when converting from double->float.

Please refer to the RELEASE.txt file in the source code for a comprehensive 
list of new features and changes.



Platforms Tested
----------------

  AIX 5.1 (32, 64 bit)
  Cray T3E, SV1, T90IEEE
  FreeBSD 
  HP-UX 
  IA-32 
  IA-64
  IRIX64 (32 and 64 bit)
  Linux 2.4 
  Mac OS X
  OSF1 
  Solaris  (32 and 64 bit)
  TFLOPS
  Windows 
  
For further information please refer to the following page (or the 
RELEASE.txt file):

    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/release/platforms5.html
                                  

Known Problems
--------------

Known problems at release time are listed in the RELEASE.txt file that 
comes with the source code.

Further information on known problems can be found on the following page:

  http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/release/known_problems5.html


-------------------------------------------------------------

For questions regarding these or other HDF issues, contact:

   hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu