HDF5 documents and links 
Introduction to HDF5 
HDF5 User’s Guide 
HDF5 Reference Manual 
HDF5 Application Developer's Guide 


HDF5 Software Changes from Release to Release


This document is designed to help developers maintain HDF5-based applications as they are used with successive releases of HDF5. To that end, this document lists the changes at each release that a maintenance developer needs to be aware of:

Bug fixes and performance enhancements in the C library are automatically picked up by the C++, Fortran, and Java libraries.

The release notes also list changes made to the library, but these notes tend to be more at a more detail-oriented level. The release notes may include new features, bugs fixed, supported configuration features, platforms on which the library has been tested, and known problems. The release note files are listed below and can be found at the top level of the HDF5 source code tree in the release_docs directory of the distributed HDF5 source code.

RELEASE.txt Technical notes regarding the current release of the HDF5 Library
HISTORY-1_10.txt Release information for all HDF5-1.10 releases
HISTORY-1_8_0-1_10_0.txt Development history between the HDF5-1.8.0 and HDF5-1.10.0 releases
HISTORY-1_10.txt Release information for HDF5-1.8.0 through HDF5-1.8.17 releases
HISTORY-1_0-1_8_0_rc3.txt
                         
Technical notes starting with HDF5-1.0.0 and ending with HDF5-1.8.0-rc3 (the state of the code prior to the HDF5-1.8.0 release)

Release 1.10.1 (current release) versus Release 1.10.0 (and 1.10.0-patch1)

This section lists interface-level changes and other user-visible changes in behavior in the transition from HDF5 Release 1.10.0 (and HDF5-1.10.0-patch1) to Release 1.10.1.

New Features

Several new features are introduced in HDF5 Release 1.10.1.
Metadata Cache Image
Metadata Cache Evict on Close
Paged Aggregation
Page Buffering

New Features, including associated C Functions

The following features are described and documented in New Features in HDF5 Release 1.10. Each new feature in 1.10.1 is listed below along with the associated C functions:

Metadata Cache Image:
 
H5Pget_mdc_image_config               Retrieves the metadata cache image configuration values for a file access property list.
H5Pset_mdc_image_config Sets the metadata cache image option for a file access property list.
H5Fget_mdc_image_info               Gets information about a metadata cache image if it exists.

Metadata Cache Evict on Close:
 
H5Pget_evict_on_close                         Retrieves the property list setting that determines whether an HDF5 object will be evicted from the library's metadata cache when it is closed.
H5Pset_evict_on_close Controls the library's behavior of evicting metadata associated with a closed object.

Paged Aggregation:
 
H5Pget_file_space_page_size       Retrieves the file space page size for a file creation property list.
H5Pset_file_space_page_size Sets the file space page size (used with paged aggregation) for a file creation property list.
H5Pget_file_space_strategy       Retrieves the file space handling strategy for a file creation property list.
H5Pset_file_space_strategy Sets the file space allocation strategy for a file creation property list.

Page Buffering:
 
H5Pget_page_buffer_size               Retrieves the maximum size for the page buffer and the minimum percentage for metadata and raw data pages.
H5Pset_page_buffer_size Sets the maximum size for the page buffer and the minimum percentage for metadata and raw data pages.
H5Fget_page_buffering_stats Retrieves statistics about page access when it is enabled.
H5Freset_page_buffering_stats Resets the page buffer statistics.

New and Changed Functions, Classes, Subroutines, Wrappers, and Macros

In the C Interface (main library)
The following new C functions were added:
H5PLappend
H5PLget
H5PLinsert
H5PLprepend
H5PLremove
H5PLreplace
H5PLsize
 
In the C++ Wrapper
New member functions were added to provide const versions. For example, these methods,
ArrayType::getArrayDims ( hsize_t* dims ) const
ArrayType::getArrayNDims ( ) const

replace these:

ArrayType::getArrayDims ( hsize_t* dims )
ArrayType::getArrayNDims ( )

Several functions were moved to other classes. For example, this method,

H5Location::openDataSet ( char const* name ) const

replaces:

CommonFG::openDataSet ( char const* name ) const

PLEASE review the Compatibility report below for complete information on the C++ changes in this release.

Compatibility Report

Compatibility report for Release 1.10.1 versus Release 1.10.0-patch1
API compatibility report for the HDF5 Library between 1.10.1 and 1.10.0-patch1 versions on x86

 

Release 1.10.0 of March 2016 versus Release 1.8.16

This section lists interface-level changes and other user-visible changes in behavior in the transition from HDF5 Release 1.8.16 to Release 1.10.0.

Changed Type

hid_t
Changed from a 32-bit to a 64-bit value.

hid_t is the type is used for all HDF5 identifiers. This change, which is necessary to accomodate the capacities of modern computing systems, therefore affects all HDF5 applications. If an application has been using HDF5’s hid_t the type, recompilation will normally be sufficient to take advantage of HDF5 Release 1.10.0. If an application uses an integer type instead of HDF5’s hid_t type, those identifiers must be changed to a 64-bit type when the application is ported to the 1.10.x series.

New Features and Feature Sets

Several new features are introduced in HDF5 Release 1.10.0.
Single-Writer / Multiple-Reader or SWMR
Collective Metadata I/O
Fine-tuning the metadata cache
File Space Management
Virtual Datasets or VDS
 
Partial Edge Chunk Options
Relative Pathnames for External Links
Property List Encoding and Decoding
 
More substantial lists follow, including new and modified C functions and Fortran subroutines.

New Features, including associated C Functions and Fortran Wrappers

The following features are described and documented in New Features in HDF5 Release 1.10.0. On this page, we list each feature and its associated C functions and Fortran wrappers.

Single-writer / Multiple-reader, commonly called SWMR:
 
H5Fstart_swmr_write Enables SWMR writing mode for a file.
H5DOappend Appends data to a dataset along a specified dimension.
(This is a high-level API.)
H5Pget_append_flush Retrieves the values of the append property that is set up in the dataset access property list.
H5Pset_append_flush Sets two actions to perform when the size of a dataset’s dimension being appended reaches a specified boundary.
H5Pget_object_flush_cb    Retrieves the object flush property values from the file access property list.
H5Pset_object_flush_cb Sets a callback function to invoke when an object flush occurs in the file.
H5Odisable_mdc_flushes Prevents metadata entries for an HDF5 object from being flushed from the metadata cache to storage.
H5Oenable_mdc_flushes Returns the cache entries associated with an HDF5 object to the default metadata flush and eviction algorithm.
H5Oare_mdc_flushes_disabled
  Determines if an HDF5 object (dataset, group, committed datatype) has had flushes of metadata entries disabled.
H5Fdisable_mdc_flushes Globally prevents dirty metadata entries from being flushed from the metadata cache to storage.
H5Fenable_mdc_flushes Returns a file’s metadata cache to the standard eviction and flushing algorithm.
H5Fare_mdc_flushes_disabled
  Determines if flushes have been globally disabled for a file’s metadata cache.
H5Fget_mdc_flush_disabled_obj_ids
  Returns a list of all object identifiers for which flushes have been disabled in a file’s metadata cache.
 
Command-line Tools:
h5watch Allows users to output new records appended to a dataset under SWMR access as it grows. The functionality is similar to the Unix user command tail with the follow option, which outputs appended data as the file grows.
h5format_convert This tool allows users to convert the indexing type of a chunked dataset made with a 1.10.x version of the HDF5 Library when the latest file format is used to the 1.8.x version 1 B-tree indexing type. For example, datasets created using SWMR access, can be converted to be accessed by the HDF5 1.18 library and tools. The tool does not rewrite raw data, but it does rewrite HDF5 metadata.

Collective Metadata I/O:
 
H5Pset_coll_metadata_write   
h5pset_coll_metadata_write_f
Establishes I/O mode property setting, collective or independent, for metadata writes.
H5Pget_coll_metadata_write 
h5pget_coll_metadata_write_f
Retrieves I/O mode property setting for metadata writes.
H5Pset_all_coll_metadata_ops   
h5pset_all_coll_metadata_ops_f  
Establishes I/O mode, collective or independent, for metadata read operations.
H5Pget_all_coll_metadata_ops 
h5pget_all_coll_metadata_ops_f
Retrieves I/O mode for metadata read operations.

Fine-tuning the Metadata Cache:
 
H5Fget_metadata_read_retries_info
  Retrieves the collection of read retries for metadata items with checksum.
H5Pget_metadata_read_attempts
  Retrieves the number of read attempts from a file access property list.
H5Pset_metadata_read_attempts
  Sets the number of read attempts in a file access property list.
H5Dflush Causes all buffers associated with a dataset to be immediately written to disk without removing the data from the cache.
H5Drefresh Causes all buffers associated with a dataset to be cleared and immediately re-loaded with updated contents from disk storage.
H5Gflush Causes all buffers associated with a group to be immediately flushed to disk without removing the data from the cache.
H5Grefresh Causes all buffers associated with a group to be cleared and immediately re-loaded with updated contents from disk storage.
H5Oflush Causes all buffers associated with an object to be immediately flushed to disk without removing the data from the cache.
H5Orefresh Causes all buffers associated with an object to be cleared and immediately re-loaded with updated contents from disk storage.
H5Tflush Causes all buffers associated with a committed datatype to be immediately flushed to disk without removing the data from the cache.
H5Trefresh Causes all buffers associated with a committed datatype to be cleared and immediately re-loaded with updated contents from disk storage.
H5Fget_intent Determines the read/write or read-only status of a file.
 
Logging APIs:
H5Pset_mdc_log_options   Sets metadata cache logging options.
H5Pget_mdc_log_options Gets metadata cache logging options.
H5Fstart_mdc_logging Starts logging metadata cache events if logging was previously enabled.
H5Fstop_mdc_logging Stops logging metadata cache events if logging was previously enabled and is currently ongoing.
H5Pget_mdc_logging_status
  Gets the current metadata cache logging status.

File Space Management:
 
H5Fget_free_sections   Retrieves free-space section information for a file.
H5Fget_freespace   Returns the amount of free space in a file.
H5Fget_info2   Returns global information for a file.
H5Pset_file_space   Sets the file space management strategy and/or the free-space section threshold for an HDF5 file.
H5Pget_file_space   Retrieves the file space management strategy and/or the free-space section threshold for an HDF5 file.
 
The following tool has been modified to preserve or modify file freepace information appropriately when processing files employing the VDS feature:
h5repack Repacks HDF5 files with various options, including the ability to change the applied filters. This version of h5repack understands the file free space feature and handles the file and metadata appropriately.

Virtual Dataset or VDS:
 
H5Pget_layout
h5pget_layout_f
H5Pset_virtual
h5pset_virtual_f
Sets the mapping between virtual and source datasets.
H5Pget_virtual_count
h5pget_virtual_count_f
Retrieves the number of mappings for the virtual dataset.
H5Pget_virtual_vspace
h5pget_virtual_vspace_f
Retrieves a dataspace identifier for the selection within the virtual dataset used in the mapping.
H5Pget_virtual_srcspace
h5pget_virtual_srcspace_f
Retrieves a dataspace identifier for the selection within the source dataset used in the mapping.
H5Pget_virtual_dsetname
h5pget_virtual_dsetname_f
Retrieves the name of a source dataset used in the mapping.
H5Pget_virtual_filename
h5pget_virtual_filename_f
Retrieves the filename of a source dataset used in the mapping.
H5Pset_virtual_printf_gap
h5pset_virtual_printf_gap_f
Sets maximum number of missing source files and/or datasets with printf-style names when getting the extent of an unlimited virtual dataset.
H5Pget_virtual_printf_gap
h5pget_virtual_printf_gap_f
Returns maximum number of missing source files and/or datasets with printf-style names when getting the extent for an unlimited virtual dataset.
H5Pset_virtual_view
h5pset_virtual_view_f
Sets the view of the virtual dataset to include or exclude missing mapped elements.
H5Pget_virtual_view
h5pget_virtual_view_f
Retrieves the view of a virtual dataset.
 
Supporting Functions:
H5Sis_regular_hyperslab
h5sis_regular_hyperslab_f
Determines whether a hyperslab selection is regular.
H5Sget_regular_hyperslab   
h5sget_regular_hyperslab_f
Retrieves a regular hyperslab selection.
 
Modified Functions:
The following pre-exising functions have been modified to understand virtual datasets.
H5Pset_layout
h5pset_layout_f
Specifies the layout to be used for a dataset.
Virtual dataset, H5D_VIRTUAL, has been added to the list of layouts available through this function.
Retrieves the layout in use for a dataset.
Virtual dataset, H5D_VIRTUAL, has been added to the list of layouts.

Partial Edge Chunks:
 
H5Pset_chunk_opts    Sets a partial edge chunk option in a dataset access property list.
H5Pget_chunk_opts  Retrieves partial edge chunk option setting from a dataset access property list.

Relative Pathnames for External Links:
 
H5Pset_elink_prefix    These functions enable the user to specify the locations of external files.
(These functions are not yet documented.)
H5Pget_elink_prefix 

Property List Encoding and Decoding:
 
H5Pencode     
H5Pdecode   

Additional New Functions:
 
The following new functions appear in HDF5 Release 1.10.0 but are not yet documented:
    H5Dformat_convert
    H5Dget_chunk_index_type
 
    H5FDlock
    H5FDunlock
 
    H5Fformat_convert
 
    H5LDget_dset_dims
    H5LDget_dset_elmts
    H5LDget_dset_type_size

New and Changed Elements of the Packet Table (H5PT) High-level API

In the C Interface
Replacement functions:
H5PTcreate
Takes a property list identifier to provide flexibility on creation properties.
H5PTcreate_fl has been removed.
H5PTfree_vlen_buff
Replaces H5PTfree_vlen_readbuff.

New functions:
Two accessor functions have been added.
H5PTget_dataset
Returns the identifier of the dataset associated a packet table.
H5PTget_type
Returns the identifier of the datatype used by a packet table.
H5PTis_varlen
Determines whether a type is variable-length.

In the C++ Interface
Overloaded constructor
An overloaded constructor has been added.
FL_PacketTable
Takes a property list identifier to provide flexibility on creation properties.>/dd>
H5PTfree_vlen_buff
Replaces H5PTfree_vlen_readbuff.

Accessor wrappers
Two accessor wrappers are added to class PacketTable.
PacketTable::GetDataset()
Returns the identifier of the dataset associated a packet table.
PacketTable::GetDatatype()
Returns the identifier of the datatype used by a packet table.

Other wrappers
PacketTable::FreeBuff()
Replaces VL_PacketTable::FreeReadBuff().
PacketTable::IsVariableLength()
Replaces VL_PacketTable::IsVariableLength().

Overloaded functions:
Where a member functions has a char* as an argument, an overloaded functions has been added to provide the const char* argument.
The existing version will be deprecated in a future release.

Java Interface Changes

Integration into Main HDF5 Library
The Java HDF5 JNI library has been integrated into the HDF5 repository.
Configure option:
--enable-java
CMake option:
HDF5_BUILD_JAVA:BOOL=ON

Prior to the 1.10.x series, the HDF5 Java tools were built from an independent repository and were not as fully integrated with HDF5. were built from an independent repository and were not as fully integrated with HDF5.

Package Hierarchy Change
The package hierarchy has changed to hdf.hdflib.hdf5.

Prior to the 1.10.x series, the hierarchy was ncsa.hdf.hdflib.hdf5.

New Java APIs
A number of new APIs have been added in the Java interface, including APIs for the VDS and SWMR features.

Functions with Changed Behavior

H5Lexists
The behavior of this function has changed in this release. When testing the pathname / (a slash representing the root of an HDF5 file) H5Lexists now returns successfully with the value 1 (one). See the entry in the HDF5 Reference Manual for H5Lexists for more information.

API Compatibility

See API Compatibility Macros in HDF5 for details on the following.

New API Compatibility Flag
A new v18 flag was added enabling the building of HDF5 such that the default API is compatible with the HDF5 Release 1.8.x API:
    --with-default-api-version=v18

New versioned functions and associated compatibility macros
Two functions and a struct have been converted to a versioned form in this release. Compatibility macros have been created for each.

H5Fget_info
The original function is renamed to H5Fget_info1 and deprecated.
A new version of the function, H5Fget_info2, is introduced.
The compatiblity macro H5Fget_info is introduced.

H5F_info_t
This is the struct used by the H5Fget_info functions and macro.
The original struct is renamed to H5F_info1_t and deprecated.
A new version of the struct, H5F_info2_t, is introduced.
The compatiblity macro H5F_info_t is introduced.

H5Rdereference
The original function is renamed to H5Rdereference1 and deprecated.
A new version of the function, H5Rdereference2, is introduced.
The compatiblity macro H5Rdereference is introduced.

Autotools Configuration and Large File Support

Autotools configuration has been extensively reworked and autotool’s handling of large file support has been overhauled in this release.

See the following sections in RELEASE.txt:

  • “Autotools Configuration Has Been Extensively Reworked”
  • “LFS Changes”

RELEASE.txt is found in the release_docs/ subdirectory at the root level of the HDF5 code distribution.

Compatibility Report and Comments

Compatibility report for Release 1.10.0 versus Release 1.8.16
API compatibility report for the HDF5 Library between 1.10.0 and 1.8.16 versions on x86

Comments regarding the report
In the C interface, the hid_t change from 32-bit to 64-bit was made in order to address a performance problem that arose when the library “ran out” of valid object identifiers to issue and thus needed to employ an expensive algorithm to find previously issued identifiers that could be re-issued. This problem is avoided by switching the size of the hid_t type to 64-bit integers instead of 32-bit integers in order to make the pool of available integers significantly larger. (H5E_major_t and H5E_minor_t are aliased to hid_t which is why they changed size as well). (An alternate solution to this problem was applied in release HDF5 1.8.5 but this is the cleaner/preferred solution and had to wait until 1.10.0 to be included).

hbool_t will now be defined as a _Bool type when configure determines that it’s available.

Public structs that have members of type hid_t or hbool_t are affected by the above changes accordingly.

The H5Fget_info function was renamed due to the introduction of a newer version of the function which returns additional information. The H5Rdereference function was renamed due to the introduction of a newer version of the function which allows a data access property list to be passed in. Both changes are accompanied with compatibility macros, so while existing code will need to be recompiled in order to use the newer library version, these functions do not need to be changed in application code using them provided that the HDF5 API compatibility macros are configured appropriately.



Releases in the 1.8.x Series

Change notes for HDF5 Release 1.8.0 to the release immediately preceding the current release are published in “HDF5 Software Changes from Release to Release for HDF5 Releases 1.8.x”.

Releases in the 1.6.x and 1.4.x Series

Change notes for HDF5 Release 1.6.10 and earlier releases are published in “HDF5 Software Changes from Release to Release for HDF5 Releases 1.4.0 through 1.6.10”.

HDF5 documents and links 
Introduction to HDF5 
HDF5 User’s Guide 
HDF5 Reference Manual 
HDF5 Application Developer's Guide 
The HDF Group Help Desk:
Describes HDF5 Release 1.10.
  Copyright by The HDF Group
and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Last modified: March 2017