HDF 4.2 Release 0 December 2003 INTRODUCTION This document describes the differences between HDF 4.1r5 and HDF 4.2r0. It is written for people who are familiar with previous releases of HDF and wish to migrate to HDF 4.2r0 The HDF 4.2r0 documentation can be found on the NCSA ftp server (ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) in the directory: ftp://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF/Documentation/ First-time HDF users are encouraged to read the FAQ in this release for more information about HDF. Users can also look at the home page for HDF at: http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ If you have any questions or comments, please send them to: hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu CONTENTS - New Features and Changes - Support for new platforms - Bugs fixed since HDF4.1r5 - Documentation - Platforms Tested - Known problems New Features and Changes: ======================== o IMPORTANT: HDF4 HAS A NEW CONFIGURATION ZLIB and JPEG libraries were removed from the HDF4 distribution source. ZLIB and JPEG have to be installed on the system before HDF4 library can be built or HDF4 precompiled binaries can be used. Please read INSTALL in the top HDF4 directory for instructions how to build the HDF4 library and applications. o HDF4 has an optional SZIP compression method; in order to use SZIP compression, SZIP library has to be installed on the system. Please refer to the INSTALL file for instructions on how to build with/without the SZIP Library. SZIP in HDF4 is free for non-commercial use; see http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/doc_resource/SZIP/Commercial_szip.html for information regarding commercial use. For more information about SZIP compression see http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/doc_resource/SZIP/ and the "HDF4 Reference Manual" entries for the GRsetcompress and SDsetcompress functions. o IMPORTANT note about prebuild binaries: NCSA precompiled binaries has SZIP compression method enabled for all platforms except Crays T3E and SV1 and Linux 2.4 SuSE x86_64. To use the binaries download the SZIP library from http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/doc_resource/SZIP/ o The following new tools have been added hrepack hdiff hdfimport See "HDF4 Reference Manual" in the HDF 4.2r0 documentation set for more information. o fp2hdf is removed. It is replaced with hdfimport. o Helper scripts to facilitate HDF4 installation and compilation were added: h4cc - to compile C application with the HDF4 Libraries h4fc - to compiler Fortran applications with the HDF4 Libraries h4redeploy - to fix binary installation See "HDF4 Reference Manual" in the HDF 4.2r0 documentation set for more information. Support for new platforms ========================= o HDF4 was ported to the following platforms AIX 5.1 64-bit version MacOSX Linux 2.4 RH8 and RH9 Linux 2.4 RH8 64-bit, SuSE 64-bit Linux 2.4 ia64 Linux 2.4 SGI (Altrix) Bugs fixed since HDF4.1r5 ========================= 1. "hdp dumpgr" and "hdp dumpsds" have two new options: -g to suppress the data of global (or file) attributes -l to suppress the data of local attributes 2. The problem where hdp failed on a very long file name has been fixed. (bug #693) 3. The problem where VSinquire failed when being called on a vdata that had no fields defined, has been fixed. (bug #626) 4. When the values of VGNAMELENMAX and VSNAMELENMAX are changed the hdp output doesn't reflect the change. This problem is now fixed. (bug #606) 5. hdp dumpvg sometimes failed when reading a file that had a vgroup being inserted into another. This has been fixed. (bug #477) 6. hdf2gif failed when a user tried it on JPEG compressed images. (Bug #601). The problem is now fixed. An error message is displayed if the image is not 8-bit. If the image is 24-bit, the message suggests using hdf2jpeg. 7. ncdump failed to read NetCDF files 3.5 when there was more than one variable with unlimited dimensions. Fixed. 8. The NetCDF part of the HDF4 library was not ported to Compaq True64 system. Fixed. 9. The hdp commands dumpsds, dumpgr, dumpvd, and dumpvg now display an informative message when a non-HDF file is given as input. (Bug #817) 10. The compilation warnings and error on the macro HDFclose are fixed. (Bug #818) Documentation ============== Entries for new utilities hdiff, hrepack, hdfimport and helper scripts h4cc, h4fc, and h4redeply were added to the Reference Manual. Platforms Tested ================ HDF 4.2 Release 0 has been tested on the following platforms: AIX 5.1 (32 and 64-bit) xlc 6.0.0.2 xlf 8.1.1 Cray T3E sn6606 2.0.6.08 Cray Standard C Version 6.6.0.2 Cray Fortran Version 3.6.0.2 Cray SV1 sn9617 10.0.1.2 Cray Standard C Version 6.6.0.2 Cray Fortran Version 3.6.0.2 FreeBSD 4.9 gcc 2.95.4 g++ 2.95.4 HP-UX B.11.00 HP C HP92453-01 A.11.01.20 HP F90 v2.4 HP ANSI C++ B3910B A.03.13 IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32) MIPSpro cc 7.3.1.3m F90 MIPSpro 7.3.1.3m Linux 2.4.20-20.7 (RH8) gcc 3.3.1 Intel(R) C++ Version 7.1 Intel(R) Fortran Compiler Version 7.1 Linux 2.4.20-20.9 (RH9) gcc 3.2.2 Linux 2.4.21-2.9.5ws x86_64 gcc version 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-16) g77 based on gcc version 3.2.3 Linux 2.4.19-SMP #1 x86_64 gcc version 3.3.2 (SuSE Linux) g77 version 3.3.2 OSF1 V5.1 Compaq C V6.4-014 Compaq Fortran V5.5-1877 SunOS 5.7(32 and 64 bit) WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0 (Solaris 2.7) WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/10/25 FORTRAN 77 5.0 gcc 3.2.2 g77 GNU Fortran (GCC 3.2.2) 3.2.2 SunOS 5.8(32 and 64 bit) Sun WorkShop 6 update 2 C 5.3 (Solaris 2.8) Sun WorkShop 6 update 2 Fortran 77 5.3 IA-32 Linux 2.4.9-31pctr Intel(R) C++ Version 7.0 Intel(R) Fortran Compiler Version 7.0 IA-64 Linux 2.4.16 ia64 Intel(R) C++ Version 7.0 Intel(R) Fortran Compiler Version 7.0 IA-64 Linux 2.4.19-SMP Intel(R) C++ Version 7.1 Intel(R) Fortran Compiler Version 7.1 gcc 3.2 g77 GNU Fortran (GCC 3.2) 3.2 IA-64 Linux 2.4.21-sgi Intel(R) C++ Version 7.1 (Altrix) Intel(R) Fortran Compiler Version 7.1 Windows 2000 (NT5.0) MSVC++ 6.0 DEC Visual Fortran 6.0 Intel C and F90 compilers version 7.1 Windows XP MSVC++.NET MAC OS X Darwin 6.8 gcc Apple Computer, Inc. GCC version 1175, based on gcc version 3.1 Known problems ============== o SZIP Library is not available for Crays SV1 and T3E Fortran APIs do not support SZIP compression. o NetCDF tests nctest (C) and ftest (Fortran) fail to read from NetCDF 3.5 files o On Linux RH8 64-bit SZIP tests fail if library is compiled in production mode. All tests pass in the debug mode. o This release doesn't support VMS system. o On Linux with gcc compilers Fortran NetCDF APIs cannot read attributes, variables, and dimensions when name contain spaces. o HDF4 Library cannot be built with PGI compilers. o N-Bit compression is not supported with Fortran APIs. o Using both fill-value and compression on SD datasets doesn't work. o --prefix defines where the installation path is. This version has the default set as /usr/local which is different from previous versions. o New utilities hdiff and hrepack are not available for Windows 2000.