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| HDF5 Last Updated on 2025-11-11 The HDF5 Field Guide

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README

HDF5 version 2.0.0 released on 2025-11-11

Warning
  Heads Up: HDF5 Dropped Autotools March 10th
  It's happened—the day we've all been dreading—or eagerly anticipating, depending on your perspective. Yes, we have switched to CMake-only builds in HDF5.
  The PR stripping all autotools was merged into the "develop" branch on March 10, 2025. Starting with HDF5 2.0, only the CMake build system is supported.

HPC configure/build/test results

Please refer to the release_docs/INSTALL file for installation/usage instructions.

This repository contains a high-performance library's source code and a file format specification that implements the HDF5® data model. The model has been adopted across many industries, and this implementation has become a de facto data management standard in science, engineering, and research communities worldwide.

The HDF Group is the developer, maintainer, and steward of HDF5 software. Find more information about The HDF Group, the HDF5 Community, and other HDF5 software projects, tools, and services at The HDF Group's website.

## DOCUMENTATION

Documentation for all HDF software is available at:

https://support.hdfgroup.org/documentation/index.html

The latest documentation for the HDF5 library can be found at:

https://support.hdfgroup.org/documentation/hdf5/latest

See the CHANGELOG.md file in the release_docs/ directory for information specific to the features and updates included in this release of the library.

Several more files are located within the release_docs/ directory with specific details for several common platforms and configurations.

- INSTALL - Start Here. General instructions for compiling and installing the library or using an installed library
- INSTALL_CMAKE - instructions for building with CMake (Kitware.com)
- README_HPC.md - instructions for building and configuring Parallel HDF5 on HPC systems
- INSTALL_Windows and INSTALL_Cygwin - MS Windows installations.
- USING_HDF5_CMake - Build and Install HDF5 Applications with CMake
- USING_CMake_Examples - Build and Test HDF5 Examples with CMake

## HELP AND SUPPORT

The HDF Group staffs a free Help Desk accessible at https://help.hdfgroup.org and also monitors the Forum. Our free support service is community-based and handled as time allows. We’ll do our best to respond to your question as soon as possible, but please note that response times may vary depending on the complexity of the issue and staff availability.

If you're interested in guaranteed response and resolution times, a dedicated technical account manager, and more benefits (all while supporting the open-source work of The HDF Group), please check out Priority Support.

## FORUM and NEWS

The HDF Forum is provided for public announcements, technical questions, and discussions of interest to the general HDF5 Community.

- News and Announcements https://forum.hdfgroup.org/c/news-and-announcements-from-the-hdf-group
- HDF5 Topics https://forum.hdfgroup.org/c/hdf5

These forums are provided as an open and public service for searching and reading. Posting requires completing a simple registration and allows one to join in the conversation. Please read the instructions for more information on how to get started.

## RELEASE SCHEDULE

HDF5 does not follow a regular release schedule. Instead, updates are based on the introduction of new features and the resolution of bugs. However, we aim to have at least one annual release for each maintenance branch.

Release | New Features
--- | ---
2.0.0 | Drop Autotools support, drop the HDF5 <--> GIF tools, add complex number support, update library defaults (cache sizes, etc.)
FUTURE | Multi-threaded HDF5, crashproofing / metadata journaling, Full (VFD) SWMR, encryption, digital signatures, sparse datasets, improved storage for variable-length datatypes, better Unicode support (especially on Windows)

### Release Progress

The badge above shows the current progress of release-blocking issues with colors that reflect completion status:

- 🟢 Green (90%+): Readying for Deployment - most blockers completed
- 🟡 Yellow (60-89%): Nearing Completion - on track for release
- 🟠 Orange (40-59%): In Development - attention needed
- 🔴 Red (<40%): Initial Phase - significant blockers remain

Click the badge to view the detailed project board with current release-blocking issues.

## SNAPSHOTS, PREVIOUS RELEASES AND SOURCE CODE

Periodically development code snapshots are provided at the following URL:

https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5/releases/tag/snapshot

Source packages for current and previous releases are located at:

hdf5 1.14 releases: https://support.hdfgroup.org/releases/hdf5/v1_14/index.html

Archived releases: https://support.hdfgroup.org/archive/support/ftp/HDF5/releases/index.html

Maven artifacts for Java bindings and examples are available at:

GitHub Packages: https://maven.pkg.github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5

Maven Central (coming soon): https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.hdfgroup/hdf5-java

Java Examples Maven Integration:

- org.hdfgroup:hdf5-java - HDF5 Java bindings with platform-specific JARs (linux-x86_64, windows-x86_64, macos-x86_64, macos-aarch64)
- org.hdfgroup:hdf5-java-examples - Complete collection of Java examples (platform-independent)
- Cross-platform CI/CD testing and deployment
- Comprehensive Maven integration with automated testing
- See HDF5Examples/JAVA/README-MAVEN.md for complete usage instructions

Development code is available at our Github location:

https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5.git