-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #83 March 25, 2005 CONTENTS ******************************* . Release of HDF5-1.6.4 * * - New Features and Changes * Visit the HDF home page * - Platforms Tested * for up-to-date information * - Known Problems * * * http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ * . H4 to H5 Tools Release 1.2 * * ******************************* . HDF Java Products Release 2.2 . Fix for hrepack . HDF Web-browser Plugin (revisited) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Release of HDF5-1.6.4 ===================== HDF5-1.6.4 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 HDF5-1.6.4, see: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/Changes.html New Features and Changes ------------------------ The major new features and changes in HDF5-1.6.4 are: o The High-Level (HL) C APIs have been added to HDF5. The HL library, libhdf5_hl.a(so), is built and installed by default. Use --disable-hl configure flag to disable the HL library. o This version of HDF5 was built and tested with SZIP 2.0. o A new utility, h5jam, is now available. This utility allows the contents of a text file to be added to the "user block" at the beginning of an HDF5 file. o Many changes were made to the library to improve performance, especially for variable length datatypes and the metadata cache. 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) AMD Opteron Cray T90, SV1 FreeBSD HP-UX IRIX64 (32 and 64 bit) Linux 2.4 Mac OS X OSF1 SGI Altix Solaris (32 and 64 bit) 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 H4 to H5 Tools Release 1.2 ========================== The latest release, version 1.2, of the H4 to H5 conversion library and tools is now available. For information, see: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/h4toh5/ The source code, as well as the pre-compiled binaries, can be obtained from the following directory: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF/HDF5/h4toh5/ Pre-compiled binaries are provided for: AIX 5.1 (-32 bit, -64 bit) AMD Opteron FreeBSD version 4.11 HP-UX B.11.00 SGI IRIX64 version 6.5 (-n32, -64 bit) Linux 2.4 Mac OS X Solaris 2.8 (-32bit, -64 bit) Windows HDF Java Products Release 2.2 ============================= The latest version of the HDF Java Products, version 2.2, is available. This version was tested with HDF5-1.6.4 and HDF 4.2r1. The HDF Java Products can be downloaded from the following page: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/hdf-java-html/ Version 2.2 includes bug fixes and a few new features. Following is a list of the major changes in HDFView with this release: o You can now view datasets with: - A compound or nested compound variable length datatype - An Enum Datatype o You can view compound variable-length attributes o Added an indicator of attributes (objects with attribute attached) o Added a slider bar for modifying image threshold range Fix for hrepack =============== There was a problem with the hrepack tool that came with HDF 4.2r1. This problem affected datasets for which no data had been written. The hrepack tool was incorrectly exiting in this case. The correct behavior for hrepack is to continue, creating the output as an empty dataset. The changes which enable hrepack to continue for empty datasets can be obtained from the directory: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF/HDF/HDF_Current/src/patches/ The file containing the changed files is: 4.2r1-hrepack-patch.tar Only one file (hrepack_sds.c) is required. However, tests are also included with the patch. Download 4.2r1-hrepack-patch.tar, untar it, and replace the files in the ./HDF4.2r1/mfhdf/hrepack/ directory of the HDF 4.2r1 source code, with these files. HDF Web-browser Plugin (revisited) ================================== In case you missed reading about it in a previous newsletter, we now have the HDF Web-browser Plugin, which can extend a web browser to display HDF4 and HDF5 files. This version of the HDF Web-browser Plugin is for Windows Only. It can be downloaded from the following page: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/plugins/ The HDF Web-browser Plugin is different from HDFView. Unlike HDFView, it is a 'light browser', with less browsing features and no editing features. It is also not an applet. It is downloaded and installed once, whereas an applet is downloaded with each invocation. Please try it out and let us know what you think about it. ------------------------------------------------------------- For questions regarding these or other HDF issues, contact: hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu