HDF Newsletter 83

March 25, 2005


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CONTENTS



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:

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 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:

You can now view datasets with:


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

Download this file, untar it, and replace the files in the corresponding directories 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.