-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #79 October 4, 2004 CONTENTS ******************************* . Release of HDF5-1.6.3 * * - New Features and Changes * Visit the HDF home page * - Platforms Tested * for up-to-date information * - Known Problems * * * http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ * . Patch for Problem Unlinking Chunked * * Datasets ******************************* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Release of HDF5-1.6.3 ====================== HDF5-1.6.3 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 HDF5-1.6.3, see: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/Changes.html New Features and Changes ------------------------ The major new features and changes in HDF5-1.6.3 are: o Several improvements to the build, test, and installation for Windows. o HDF5 can now include SZIP compression with and without SZIP's encoder, which is required for creating SZIP compressed files. The encoder is not required for reading SZIP compressed files. On our ftp server we provide all binaries with the SZIP encoder included, but we also provide a few without the encoder. Please refer to the following page for information on SZIP and SZIP licensing: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/doc_resource/SZIP/ o A new API function H5Fget_filesize was added. It returns the actual file size of the opened file. o A new API function H5Fget_name was added. It returns the name of the file by object (file, group, data set, named data type, attribute) ID. o The h5repack utility has been added to the tools suite. It regenerates an HDF5 file from another HDF5 file, optionally applying HDF5 filters (compression) and/or chunking to the copied file. The filters options are read from the command line. o New options have been added to h5dump to: - print dataset filters, storage layout, and fill value information - print a list of the file contents - escape non-printable characters - print the contents of the boot block - print array indices with the data (default) o The following F90 subroutines have been added: h5fget_filesize_f, h5iget_file_id_f, h5premove_filter_f, and h5zget_filter_info_f. o New C++ wrappers have been added for variable length datatypes, as well as for many other API functions. o Added support for several platforms and compilers: - PGI Fortran for Linux64 (x86-64) - Absoft F95 for Linux 2.4 -32 bit - IBM XL Fortran and Absoft F95 for Mac OS X This release also contains many bug fixes. 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 and 5.2 (32 and 64 bit) Cray T3E, SV1, T90 FreeBSD HP-UX 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 Patch for Problem Unlinking Chunked Datasets ============================================ After testing began for HDF5-1.6.3, a problem was encountered with unlinking chunked datasets, which caused the library to crash. The fix for this problem did not make it into the HDF5-1.6.3 release. However, a patch is available for this problem, which can be downloaded from the patches directory at: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF/HDF5/current/src/patches/ Either: 1) Download the HDF5-1.6.3 source code AND download the H5Distore.c file from the patches directory, replacing the H5Distore.c file in the source code under ./hdf5-1.6.3/src/. OR 2) Download the patched HDF5-1.6.3 source code (hdf5-1.6.3-patch.tar.gz) from the patches directory. Note that this fix is NOT included in the pre-compiled binaries we provide. ------------------------------------------------------------- For questions regarding these or other HDF issues, contact: hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu