[svn-r3344]

Purpose:
    Extracting RELEASE and HISTORY from Changes.html and distributing
    them as separate files will not only leave Changes.html easier to
    read, but will ease maintenance.
Solution:
    Removed the RELEASE and HISTORY files' contents from Changes.html,
        inserting links instead.
    Changes.html now points to RELEASE.txt and HISTORY.txt, duplicates
        of hdf5/RELEASE and hdf5/HISTORY.  These two files will
        henceforth be distributed within the doc set so that this
        information can be available to applications developers who
        cannot access the HDF website (e.g., due to a firewall) and
        are working without the HDF5 source code.
    Affected files: hdf5/doc/html/ADGuide/Changes.html
                    hdf5/doc/html/ADGuide/RELEASE.txt
                    hdf5/doc/html/ADGuide/HISTORY.txt
Platforms tested:
    IE 5

3 files changed, 1445 insertions, 1287 deletions

diff --git a/doc/html/ADGuide/Changes.html b/doc/html/ADGuide/Changes.html
index f6601b1..e5de715 100755
--- a/doc/html/ADGuide/Changes.html
+++ b/doc/html/ADGuide/Changes.html
@@ -37,12 +37,6 @@ an application synchroniaed with the HDF5 library or related software.
 
 <h2>Release 1.4 (current release)</h2> 
 
-<!--                                                  -->
-<!--   insert the file hdf5/RELEASE in this section   -->
-<!--   insert the file hdf5/HISTORY in next section   -->
-<!--                                                  -->
-
-
 <dir>
 
     Several functions were added to or removed from the HDF5 library
@@ -242,1293 +236,38 @@ H5Tinsert_array
         These default values had to be special-cased in situations where
         they could be returned to distinguish them from error values.
 
-    <h3>Full Release Notes</h3>
-        The following material is from the file <code>hdf5/RELEASE</code>, 
-        as distributed with the HDF5 library source code.
-
-<pre>
-
-                       HDF5 Release 1.4-Beta2
-
-
-INTRODUCTION
-
-This document describes the differences between HDF5-1.2.0 and
-HDF5-1.4-Beta2, and contains information on the platforms tested and
-known problems in HDF5-1.4-Beta2. For more details check the HISTORY 
-file in the HDF5 source.
-
-The HDF5 documentation can be found on the NCSA ftp server
-(ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) in the directory:
-
-     /HDF/HDF5/docs/
-
-For more information look at the HDF5 home page at:
-   
-    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/
-
-If you have any questions or comments, please send them to:
-
-    hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-- New Features
-- h4toh5 Utility 
-- F90 Support
-- C++ Support
-- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.2.0 
-- Platforms Tested
-- Known Problems
-
-New Features
-============
-   * The Virtual File Layer, VFL, was added to replace the old file
-     drivers. It also provides an API for user defined file drivers.
-   * New features added to snapshots. Use 'snapshot help' to see a
-     complete list of features.
-   * Improved configure to detect if MPIO routines are available when
-     parallel mode is requested.
-   * Added Thread-Safe support. Phase I implemented.
-   * Added data sieve buffering to raw data I/O path. This is enabled
-     for all VFL drivers except the mpio & core drivers. Setting the
-     sieve buffer size is controlled with the new API function,
-     H5Pset_sieve_buf_size(), and retrieved with H5Pget_sieve_buf_size().
-   * Added new Virtual File Driver, Stream VFD, to send/receive entire
-     HDF5 files via socket connections.
-   * As parts of VFL, HDF-GASS and HDF-SRB are also added to this
-     release. To find out details, please read INSTALL_VFL file. 
-   * Increased maximum number of dimensions for a dataset (H5S_MAX_RANK)
-     from 31 to 32 to align with HDF4 & netCDF.
-   * Added 'query' function to VFL drivers.  Also added 'type' parameter to
-     VFL 'read' & 'write' calls, so they are aware of the type of data
-     being accessed in the file.  Updated the VFL document also.
-   * A new h4toh5 uitlity, to convert HDF4 files to analogous HDF5 files.
-   * Added a new array datatype to the datatypes which can be created.  Removed
-     "array fields" from compound datatypes (use an array datatype instead).
-   * Parallel HDF5 works correctly with mpich-1.2.1 on Solaris, SGI, Linux.
-
-h4toh5 Utility 
-==============
-
-    The h4toh5 utility is a new utility that converts an HDF4 file to an 
-    HDF5 file.  For details, see the document, "Mapping HDF4 Objects to 
-    HDF5 Objects":
-       http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/papers/H4-H5MappingGuidelines.pdf
-
-    Known Limitations of the h4toh5 beta release
-    ---------------------------------------------
-
-    1. Error Handling
-
-    Error reporting is minimal.
-
-    2. String Datatype
-
-    HDF4 has no 'string' type. String valued data are usually defined as
-    an array of 'char' in HDF4. The h4toh5 utility will generally map
-    these to HDF5 'String' types rather than array of char, with the
-    following additional rules:
-
-       * For the data of an HDF4 SDS, image, and palette, if the data is
-	 declared 'DFNT_CHAR8' it will be assumed to be integer and
-	 will be an H5T_INTEGER type.
-       * For attributes of any HDF4 object, data of type 'DFNT_CHAR8'
-	 will be converted to an HDF5 'H5T_STRING' type.
-       * For an HDF4 Vdata, it is difficult to determine whether data 
-	 of type 'DFNT_CHAR8' is intended to be bytes or characters.
-	 The h4toh5 utility will consider them to be C characters, and
-	 will convert them to an HDF5 'H5T_STRING' type.
-
-
-    3. Compression, Chunking and External Storage
-
-    Chunking is supported, but compression and external storage is not.
-
-    An HDF4 object that uses chunking will be converted to an HDF5 file
-    with analogous chunked storage.
-
-    An HDF4 object that uses compression will be converted to an
-    uncompressed HDF5 object.  
-
-    An HDF4 object that uses external storage will be converted to an
-    HDF5 object without external storage.  
-
-    4. Memory Use
-
-    The beta version of the h4toh5 utility copies data from HDF4 objects
-    in a single read followed by a single write to the HDF5 object. For
-    large objects, this requires a very large amount of memory, which may
-    be extremely slow or fail on some platforms.
-
-    Note that a dataset that has only been partly written will
-    be read completely, including uninitialized data, and all the
-    data will be written to the HDF5 object.
-
-    5. Platforms
-
-    The h4toh5 utility requires HDF5.1.4.
-
-    The beta h4toh5 utility has been tested on Solaris 2.6, Solaris 2.5,
-    Irix 6.5, HPUX 11.0, DEC Unix, FreeBSD, and Windows 2000.
-
-F90 Support
-===========
- 
-    This is the first release of the HDF5 Library with fully integrated 
-    F90 API support.  The Fortran Library is created when the 
-    --enable-fortran flag is specified during configuration.
-
-    Not all F90 subroutines are implemented. Please refer to the HDF5 
-    Reference Manual for more details.
-   
-    F90 APIs are available for the Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, Linux, DEC UNIX, 
-    T3E, J90 and O2K (64 bit option only) platforms. The Parallel version of 
-    the HDF5 F90 Library is supported on the O2K and T3E platforms.
-
-    Changes since the last prototype release (July 2000)
-    ----------------------------------------------------
-
-       * h5open_f and h5close_f must be called instead of h5init_types and 
-         h5close_types.
-
-       * The following subroutines are no longer available: 
-             h5pset_xfer_f
-             h5pget_xfer_f
-             h5pset_mpi_f
-             h5pget_mpi_f
-             h5pset_stdio_f
-             h5pget_stdio_f
-             h5pset_sec2_f
-             h5pget_sec2_f
-             h5pset_core_f
-             h5pget_core_f
-             h5pset_family_f
-             h5pget_family_f
-             
-       * The following functions have been added:
-             h5pset_fapl_mpio_f
-             h5pget_fapl_mpio_f
-             h5pset_dxpl_mpio_f
-             h5pget_dxpl_mpio_f
-        
-       * In the previous HDF5 F90 releases, the implementation of object 
-         references and dataset region references was not portable. This 
-         release introduces a portable implementation, but it also introduces 
-         changes to the read/write APIs that handle references.  If object or 
-         dataset region references are written or read to/from an HDF5 file, 
-         h5dwrite_f and h5dread_f must use the extra parameter, n, for the 
-         buffer size:
-
-            h5dwrite(read)_f(dset_id, mem_type_id, buf, n, hdferr, &
-                                                       ^^^ 
-                             mem_space_id, file_space_id, xfer_prp)
-
-         For other datatypes the APIs were not changed. 
-              
-             
-C++ Support
-===========
-
-        This is the first release of the HDF5 Library with fully integrated 
-        C++ API support. The HDF5 C++ library is built when the --enable-cxx
-        flag is specified during configuration.
-
-        Check the HDF5 Reference Manual for available C++ documentation.
-
-        C++ APIs are available for Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, Linux, and FreeBSD. 
- 
-
-Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.2.0
-==========================
-
-Library
--------
-
-   * The function H5Pset_mpi is renamed as H5Pset_fapl_mpio.
-   * Corrected a floating point number conversion error for the Cray J90
-     platform. The error did not convert the value 0.0 correctly.
-   * Error was fixed which was not allowing dataset region references to
-     have their regions retrieved correctly.
-   * Corrected a bug that caused non-parallel file drivers to fail in
-     the parallel version.
-   * Added internal free-lists to reduce memory required by the library
-     and H5garbage_collect API function
-   * Fixed error in H5Giterate which was not updating the "index"
-     parameter correctly.
-   * Fixed error in hyperslab iteration which was not walking through the
-     correct sequence of array elements if hyperslabs were staggered in a
-     certain pattern
-   * Fixed several other problems in hyperslab iteration code.
-   * Fixed another H5Giterate bug which was causes groups with large
-     numbers of objects in them to misbehave when the callback function
-     returned non-zero values.
-   * Changed return type of H5Aiterate and H5A_operator_t typedef to be
-     herr_t, to align them with the dataset and group iterator functions.
-   * Changed H5Screate_simple and H5Sset_extent_simple to not allow
-     dimensions of size 0 with out the same dimension being unlimited.
-   * QAK - 4/19/00 - Improved metadata hashing & caching algorithms to
-     avoid many hash flushes and also remove some redundant I/O when
-     moving metadata blocks in the file.
-   * The "struct(opt)" type conversion function which gets invoked for
-     certain compound datatype conversions was fixed for nested compound
-     types. This required a small change in the datatype conversion
-     function API.
-   * Re-wrote lots of the hyperslab code to speed it up quite a bit.
-   * Added bounded garbage collection for the free lists when they run
-     out of memory and also added H5set_free_list_limits API call to
-     allow users to put an upper limit on the amount of memory used for
-     free lists.
-   * Checked for non-existent or deleted objects when dereferencing one
-     with object or region references and disallow dereference.
-   * "Time" datatypes (H5T_UNIX_D*) were not being stored and retrieved
-     from object headers correctly, fixed now.
-   * Fixed H5Dread or H5Dwrite calls with H5FD_MPIO_COLLECTIVE requests
-     that may hang because not all processes are transfer the same amount
-     of data. (A.K.A. prematured collective return when zero amount data
-     requested.) Collective calls that may cause hanging is done via the
-     corresponding MPI-IO independent calls.
-
-Configuration
--------------
-
-   * The hdf5.h include file was fixed to allow the HDF5 Library to be
-     compiled with other libraries/applications that use GNU autoconf. 
-   * Configuration for parallel HDF5 was improved. Configure now attempts
-     to link with libmpi.a and/or libmpio.a as the MPI libraries by
-     default. It also uses "mpirun" to launch MPI tests by default. It
-     tests to link MPIO routines during the configuration stage, rather
-     than failing later as before. One can just do "./configure
-     --enable-parallel" if the MPI library is in the system library.
-   * Added support for pthread library and thread-safe option.
-   * The libhdf5.settings file shows the correct machine byte-sex.
-   * Added option "--enable-stream-vfd" to configure w/o the Stream VFD.
-     For Solaris, added -lsocket to the LIBS list of libraries.
-
-Tools
------
-    * h5dump now accepts both short and long command-line parameters. A
-      change from the old way is that multiple attributes, datasets,
-      groups, soft-links, and object-ids cannot be specified with just
-      one flag but you have to use a flag with each object. I.e., instead
-      of doing this:
-
-        h5dump -a /attr1 /attr2 foo.h5
-
-      do this:
-
-        h5dump -a /attr1 -a /attr2 foo.h5
-
-      The cases are similar for the other object types.
-    * h5dump correctly displays compound datatypes.
-    * Corrected an error in h5toh4 which did not convert the 32bits
-      int from HDF5 to HDF4 corectly for the T3E platform.
-    * h5dump correctly displays the committed copy of predefined types
-      correctly.
-    * Added an option, -V, to show the version information of h5dump.
-    * Fixed a core dumping bug of h5toh4 when executed on platforms like 
-      TFLOPS.
-    * The test script for h5toh4 used to not able to detect the hdp
-      dumper command was not valid.  It now detects and reports the
-      failure of hdp execution.
-    * Merged the tools with the 1.2.2 branch. Required adding new
-      macros, VERSION12 and VERSION13, used in conditional compilation.
-      Updated the Windows project files for the tools.            
-    * h5dump displays opaque and bitfield data correctly.
-    * h5dump and h5ls can browse files created with the Stream VFD
-      (eg. "h5ls <hostname>:<port>").
-    * h5dump has a new feature "-o <filename>" which outputs the raw data
-      of the dataset into ascii text file <filename>.
-    * h5toh4 used to converts hdf5 strings type to hdf4 DFNT_INT8 type.
-      Corrected to produce hdf4 DFNT_CHAR type instead.
-    * h5dump and h5ls displays array data correctly.
-
-Documentation
--------------
-
-    * User's Guide and Reference Manual were updated. 
-      See doc/html/PSandPDF/index.html for more details. 
-
-   
-Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0-beta2
-================================
-
-    * Corrected configuration error which was not including compression support
-        correctly.
-    * Cleaned up lots of warnings.
-    * Changed a few h5dump command line switches and added long versions of
-        the switches.
-
-Platforms Tested
-================
-
- Note: Due to the nature of the bug fixes, only static versions of the
-       library and tools were tested.
-
-
-  AIX 4.3.2 (IBM SP)            mpcc_r 3.6.6
-  Cray T3E sn6711 2.0.539b      Cray Standard C Version 6.3.0.2
-                                Cray Fortran Version 3.4.0.2
-  FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE            gcc 2.95.2
-                                g++ 2.95.2
-  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32.30
-  HP-UX B.11.00                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.11.00.13
-  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30
-  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
-                                mpt.1.4.0.2
-				mpich-1.2.1
-  Linux 2.2.16-3smp             gcc-2.95.2
-                                g++ 2.95.2
-                                pgf90 3.1-3
-  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
-                                Digital Fortran 90 V4.1-270
-  SunOS 5.6                     WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0 
-  (Solaris 2.6)                 WorkShop Compilers 5.0 99/10/25 Fortran 90
-                                       2.0 Patch 107356-04
-                                Workshop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C++ 5.0
-  SunOS 5.7                     WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0
-  (Solaris 2.7)                 WorkShop Compilers 5.0 99/10/25 Fortran 90
-                                       2.0 Patch 107356-04
-                                Workshop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C++ 5.0
-  TFLOPS 3.3                    mpich-1.2.0 with local changes
-  Windows NT4.0, 2000 (NT5.0)   MSVC++ 6.0
-
-Known Problems
-==============
-
-* When building the HDF5 test project on Windows NT 4.0 (testhdf5
-  and testhdf5dll), the compiler fails to compile tvstr.c within
-  the whole project; however, when separately selecting the 
-  tvstr.c source code, it passes the compiler and everything that
-  depends on tvstr.obj links correctly.
-
-* h4toh5 fails on object references on the Cray T3E.
-
-* The installation of the DEC Fortran binaries fails.  It can be
-  done manually by copying the *.mod files from the fortran/src
-  directory.
-
-* Fortran modules are not installed when created. This should be done
-  manually by copying the modules from the fortran/src directory.
-
-* SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2:  Hyperslab selections will 
-  fail if library is compiled using optimization of any level.
-
-* The Stream VFD was not tested yet under Windows.
-  It is not supported in the TFLOPS machine.
-
-* Shared library option is broken for IBM SP and some Origin 2000 platforms.
-  One needs to run ./configure with '--disable-shared'
-
-* The ./dsets tests failed in the TFLOPS machine if the test program,
-  dsets.c, is compiled with the -O option.  The hdf5 library still works
-  correctly with the -O option.  The test program works fine if it is
-  compiled with -O1 or -O0.  Only -O (same as -O2) causes the test
-  program to fail.
-
-* Certain platforms give false negatives when testing h5ls:
-    - Solaris x86 2.5.1, Cray T3E and Cray J90 give errors during testing
-        when displaying object references in certain files.  These are benign 
-        differences due to the difference in sizes of the objects created on
-        those platforms.  h5ls appears to be dumping object references
-        correctly.
-    - Cray J90 (and Cray T3E?) give errors during testing when displaying
-        some floating-point values.  These are benign differences due to the
-        different precision in the values displayed and h5ls appears to be
-        dumping floating-point numbers correctly.
-
-</pre>
-</dir>
-
-
-<h2>Previous Releases</h2>
-
-<dir>
-    The following material is from the file <code>hdf5/HISTORY</code>, 
-    as distributed with the HDF5 library source code.
-
-<pre>
-
-CONTENTS
-I.   Release Information for hdf5-1.2.1
-II.  Release Information for hdf5-1.2.0
-     A. Platforms Supported
-     B. Known Problems
-     C. Changes Since Version 1.0.1  
-        1. Documentation
-        2. Configuration
-        3. Debugging
-        4. Datatypes
-        5. Dataspaces
-        6. Persistent Pointers
-        7. Parallel Support
-        8. New API Functions
-           a. Property List Interface
-           b. Dataset Interface
-           c. Dataspace Interface
-           d. Datatype Interface
-           e. Identifier Interface
-           f. Reference Interface
-           g. Ragged Arrays
-        9. Tools
-
-III.  Changes Since the Version 1.0.0 Release   
-
-IV.   Changes Since the Beta 1.0.0 Release
-
-V.    Changes Since the Second Alpha 1.0.0 Release
-
-VI.   Changes Since the First Alpha 1.0.0 Release 
-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-I. Release Information for hdf5-1.2.1
-
-Bug fixes since HDF5-1.2.0
-==========================
-
-Configuration
--------------
-
-   * The hdf5.h include file was fixed to allow the HDF5 Library to be compiled
-     with other libraries/applications that use GNU autoconf. 
-   * Configuration for parallel HDF5 was improved. Configure now attempts to
-     link with libmpi.a and/or libmpio.a as the MPI libraries by default.
-     It also uses "mpirun" to launch MPI tests by default.  It tests to
-     link MPIO routines during the configuration stage, rather than failing
-     later as before.  One can just do "./configure --enable-parallel"
-     if the MPI library is in the system library.
-
-Library
--------
-
-   * Error was fixed which was not allowing dataset region references to have
-     their regions retrieved correctly.
-   * Added internal free-lists to reduce memory required by the library and
-     H5garbage_collect API function
-   * Fixed error in H5Giterate which was not updating the "index" parameter
-     correctly.
-   * Fixed error in hyperslab iteration which was not walking through the
-     correct sequence of array elements if hyperslabs were staggered in a
-     certain pattern
-   * Fixed several other problems in hyperslab iteration code.
-
-Tests
-------
-   * Added additional tests for group and attribute iteration.
-   * Added additional test for staggered hyperslab iteration.
-   * Added additional test for random 5-D hyperslab selection.
-
-Tools
-------
-
-   * Added an option, -V, to show the version information of h5dump.
-   * Fixed a core dumping bug of h5toh4 when executed on platforms like 
-     TFLOPS.
-   * The test script for h5toh4 used to not able to detect the hdp
-     dumper command was not valid.  It now detects and reports the
-     failure of hdp execution.
-
-Documentation
--------------
-
-   * User's Guide and Reference Manual were updated. 
-     See doc/html/PSandPDF/index.html for more details. 
-
-   
-Platforms Tested:
-================
- Note: Due to the nature of bug fixes, only static versions of the library and tools were tested.
-
-
-  AIX 4.3.2 (IBM SP)            3.6.6
-  Cray T3E 2.0.4.81             cc 6.3.0.1
-                                mpt.1.3
-  FreeBSD 3.3-STABLE            gcc 2.95.2
-  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32
-  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30
-  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
-                                mpt.1.3 (SGI MPI 3.2.0.0)
-
-  Linux 2.2.10 SuSE             egcs-2.91.66               configured with
-  (i686-pc-linux-gnu)                                      --disable-hsizet
-                                mpich-1.2.0 egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux 
-
-  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
-  SunOS 5.6                     cc WorkShop Compilers 4.2  no optimization
-  SunOS 5.7                     cc WorkShop Compilers 5.0
-  TFLOPS 2.8                    cicc (pgcc Rel 3.0-5i)
-                                mpich-1.1.2 with local changes
-  Windows NT4.0 sp5             MSVC++ 6.0
-
-Known Problems:
-==============
-
-o SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2:  Hyperslab selections will 
-  fail if library is compiled using optimization of any level.
-
-
-         
-II. Release Information for hdf5-1.2.0
-
-A. Platforms Supported
-   -------------------
-
-Operating systems listed below with compiler information and MPI library, if
-applicable, are systems that HDF5 1.2.0 was tested on.
-
-                           Compiler & libraries
-  Platform                      Information              Comment
-  --------                      ----------               -------- 
-                                
-  AIX 4.3.2 (IBM SP)            3.6.6
-
-  Cray J90 10.0.0.6             cc 6.3.0.0
-
-  Cray T3E 2.0.4.61             cc 6.2.1.0 
-                                mpt.1.3
-
-  FreeBSD 3.2                   gcc 2.95.1
-
-  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32
-                                gcc 2.8.1
-
-  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30 
-
-  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
-  			        mpt.1.3 (SGI MPI 3.2.0.0)
-
-  Linux 2.2.10                  egcs-2.91.66               configured with
-  						         --disable-hsizet
-                                                           lbraries: glibc2
-
-  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
-
-  SunOS 5.6                     cc WorkShop Compilers 4.2   
-                                                           no optimization
-  			        gcc 2.8.1
-
-  SunOS 5.7                     cc WorkShop Compilers 5.0
-                                gcc 2.8.1
- 
-  TFLOPS 2.7.1                  cicc (pgcc Rel 3.0-4i)
-  			        mpich-1.1.2 with local changes
-
-  Windows NT4.0 intel           MSVC++ 5.0 and 6.0
-
-  Windows NT alpha 4.0          MSVC++ 5.0 
-
-  Windows 98                    MSVC++ 5.0
-
-
-B. Known Problems
-   --------------
-
-* NT alpha 4.0
-  Dumper utiliy h5dump fails if linked with DLL.
-
-* SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2
-  Hyperslab selections will fail if library is compiled using optimization
-  of any level.
-
- 
-C. Changes Since Version 1.0.1
-   ---------------------------
-
-1. Documentation
-   -------------
-
-* More examples
-
-* Updated user guide, reference manual, and format specification.
-
-* Self-contained documentation for installations isolated from the
-  Internet.
-
-* HDF5 Tutorial was added to the documentation  
-
-2. Configuration
-   -------------
-
-* Better detection and support for MPI-IO.
-
-* Recognition of compilers with known code generation problems.
-
-* Support for various compilers on a single architecture (e.g., the
-  native compiler and the GNU compilers).
-
-* Ability to build from read-only media and with different compilers
-  and/or options concurrently.
-
-* Added a libhdf5.settings file which summarizes the configuration
-  information and is installed along with the library.
-
-* Builds a shared library on most systems that support it.
-
-* Support for Cray T3E, J90 and Windows/NT.
-
-3. Debugging
-   ---------
-
-* Improved control and redirection of debugging and tracing messages.
-
-4. Datatypes
-   ---------
-
-* Optimizations to compound datatype conversions and I/O operations.
-
-* Added nearly 100 optimized conversion functions for native datatypes 
-  including support for non-aligned data.
-
-* Added support for bitfield, opaque, and enumeration types.
-
-* Added distinctions between signed and unsigned char types to the
-  list of predefined native hdf5 datatypes.
-
-* Added HDF5 type definitions for C9x types like int32_t.
-
-* Application-defined type conversion functions can handle non-packed
-  data.
-
-* Changed the H5Tunregister() function to use wildcards when matching
-  conversion functions.  H5Tregister_hard() and H5Tregister_soft()
-  were combined into H5Tregister().
-
-* Support for variable-length datatypes (arrays of varying length per
-  dataset element). Variable length strings currently supported only
-  as variable length arrays of 1-byte integers.
-
-5. Dataspaces
-   ----------
-
-* New query functions for selections.
-
-* I/O operations bypass the stripmining loop and go directly to
-  storage for certain contiguous selections in the absense of type
-  conversions.  In other cases the stripmining buffers are used more
-  effectively.
-
-* Reduced the number of I/O requests under certain circumstances,
-  improving performance on systems with high I/O latency.
-
-6. Persistent Pointers
-   -------------------
-
-* Object (serial and parallel) and dataset region (serial only)
-  references are implemented.
-
-7. Parallel Support
-   ----------------
-
-* Improved parallel I/O performance.
-
-* Supported new platforms: Cray T3E, Linux, DEC Cluster.
-
-* Use vendor supported version of MPIO on SGI O2K and Cray platforms.
-
-* Improved the algorithm that translates an HDF5 hyperslab selection
-  into an MPI type for better collective I/O performance.
-
-8. New API functions 
-   -----------------
-
-  a. Property List Interface:
-     ------------------------
-
-  H5Pset_xfer		- set data transfer properties
-  H5Pset_preserve      - set dataset transfer property list status 
-  H5Pget_preserve      - get dataset transfer property list status
-  H5Pset_hyper_cache   - indicates whether to cache hyperslab blocks during I/O
-  H5Pget_hyper_cache   - returns information regarding the caching of 
-                         hyperslab blocks during I/O
-  H5Pget_btree_ratios  - sets B-tree split ratios for a dataset 
-                         transfer property list
-  H5Pset_btree_ratios  - gets B-tree split ratios for a dataset
-                         transfer property list
-  H5Pset_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length 
-                            datatype allocation
-  H5Pget_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length
-                            datatype allocation
-
-  b. Dataset Interface:
-     ------------------
-
-  H5Diterate           - iterate over all selected elements in a dataspace
-  H5Dget_storage_size  - return the amount of storage required for a dataset
-  H5Dvlen_reclaim      - reclaim VL datatype memory buffers
-
-  c. Dataspace Interface:
-     --------------------
-  H5Sget_select_hyper_nblocks   - get number of hyperslab blocks
-  H5Sget_select_hyper_blocklist - get the list of hyperslab blocks 
-                                  currently selected
-  H5Sget_select_elem_npoints    - get the number of element points 
-                                  in the current selection
-  H5Sget_select_elem_pointlist  - get the list of element points 
-                                  currently selected
-  H5Sget_select_bounds          - gets the bounding box containing 
-                                  the current selection
-
-  d. Datatype Interface:
-     -------------------
-  H5Tget_super         - return the base datatype from which a 
-                         datatype is derived
-  H5Tvlen_create       - creates a new variable-length dataype
-  H5Tenum_create       - creates a new enumeration datatype
-  H5Tenum_insert       - inserts a new enumeration datatype member
-  H5Tenum_nameof       - returns the symbol name corresponding to a 
-                         specified member of an enumeration datatype
-  H5Tvalueof           - return the value corresponding to a 
-                         specified member of an enumeration datatype 
-  H5Tget_member_value  - return the value of an enumeration datatype member
-  H5Tset_tag           - tags an opaque datatype
-  H5Tget_tag           - gets the tag associated with an opaque datatype
-
-  e. Identifier Interface:
-     ---------------------
-  H5Iget_type          - retrieve the type of an object
-
-  f. Reference Interface:
-     --------------------
-  H5Rcreate            - creates a reference
-  H5Rdereference       - open the HDF5 object referenced
-  H5Rget_region        - retrieve a dataspace with the specified region selected
-  H5Rget_object_type   - retrieve the type of object that an 
-                         object reference points to
-
-  g. Ragged Arrays (alpha) (names of those API functions were changed):
-     ------------------------------------------------------------------
-   H5RAcreate		- create a new ragged array (old name was H5Rcreate)
-   H5RAopen		- open an existing array    (old name was H5Ropen)
-   H5RAclose		- close a ragged array      (old name was H5Rclose)
-   H5RAwrite		- write to an array         (old name was H5Rwrite)
-   H5RAread		- read from an array        (old name was H5Rread)
-
-
-9. Tools
-   -----
-
-* Enhancements to the h5ls tool including the ability to list objects
-  from more than one file, to display raw hexadecimal data, to
-  show file addresses for raw data, to format output more reasonably,
-  to show object attributes, and to perform a recursive listing, 
-
-* Enhancements to h5dump: support new data types added since previous
-  versions.
-
-* h5toh4: An hdf5 to hdf4 converter.
-
-
-
-III. Changes Since The Version 1.0.0 Release
-
-* [Improvement]: configure sets up the Makefile in the parallel tests
-  suit (testpar/) correctly.
-
-* [Bug-Fix]: Configure failed for all IRIX versions other than 6.3.
-  It now configures correctly for all IRIX 6.x version.
-
-* Released Parallel HDF5 
-
-     Supported Features:
-     ------------------
-
-     HDF5 files are accessed according to the communicator and INFO
-     object defined in the property list set by H5Pset_mpi.
-
-     Independent read and write accesses to fixed and extendable dimension
-     datasets.
-
-     Collective read and write accesses to fixed dimension datasets.
-
-     Supported Platforms:
-     -------------------
-
-     Intel Red
-     IBM SP2
-     SGI Origin 2000
-
-     Changes In This Release: 
-     -----------------------
-
-   o Support of Access to Extendable Dimension Datasets.
-     Extendable dimension datasets must use chunked storage methods.
-     A new function, H5Dextend, is created to extend the current
-     dimensions of a dataset.  The current release requires the
-     MPI application must make a collective call to extend the
-     dimensions of an extendable dataset before writing to the
-     newly extended area.  (The serial does not require the
-     call of H5Dextend.  The dimensions of an extendable
-     dataset is increased when data is written to beyond the
-     current dimensions but within the maximum dimensions.)
-     The required collective call of H5Dextend may be relaxed
-     in future release.
-
-     This release only support independent read and write accesses
-     to extendable datasets.  Collective accesses to extendable
-     datasets will be implemented in future releases.
-
-   o Collective access to fixed dimension datasets.
-     Collective access to a dataset can be specified in the transfer
-     property list argument in H5Dread and H5Dwrite.  The current
-     release supports collective access to fixed dimension datasets.
-     Collective access to extendable datasets will be implemented in
-     future releases.
-
-   o HDF5 files are opened according to Communicator and INFO object.
-     H5Dopen now records the communicator and INFO setup by H5Pset_mmpi
-     and pass them to the corresponding MPIO open file calls for
-     processing.
-
-   o This release has been tested on IBM SP2, Intel Red and SGI Origin 2000
-     systems.  It uses the ROMIO version of MPIO interface for parallel
-     I/O supports.
-
-
-
-IV. Changes Since The Beta 1.0.0 Release
-
-* Added fill values for datasets.  For contiguous datasets fill value
-  performance may be quite poor since the fill value is written to the 
-  entire dataset when the dataset is created.  This will be remedied
-  in a future version.  Chunked datasets using fill values do not
-  incur any additional overhead. See H5Pset_fill_value().
-
-* Multiple hdf5 files can be "mounted" on one another to create a
-  larger virtual file. See H5Fmount().
-
-* Object names can be removed or changed but objects are never
-  actually removed from the file yet. See H5Gunlink() and H5Gmove().
-
-* Added a tuning mechanism for B-trees to insure that sequential
-  writes to chunked datasets use less overhead.  See H5Pset_btree_ratios().
-
-* Various optimizations and bug fixes.
-
-
-V. Changes Since The Second Alpha 1.0.0 Release
-
-* Strided hyperslab selections in dataspaces now working.
-
-* The compression API has been replaced with a more general filter
-  API.  See doc/html/Filters.html for details.
-
-* Alpha-quality 2d ragged arrays are implemented as a layer built on
-  top of other hdf5 objects.  The API and storage format will almost
-  certainly change.
-
-* More debugging support including API tracing.  See Debugging.html.
-
-* C and Fortran style 8-bit fixed-length character string types are
-  supported with space or null padding or null termination and
-  translations between them.
-
-* Added function H5Fflush() to write all cached data immediately to
-  the file.
-
-* Datasets maintain a modification time which can be retrieved with
-  H5Gstat().
-
-* The h5ls tool can display much more information, including all the
-  values of a dataset.
-
-
-VI. Changes Since The First Alpha 1.0.0 Release
-
-* Two of the packages have been renamed.  The data space API has been
-  renamed from `H5P' to `H5S' and the property list (template) API has 
-  been renamed from `H5C' to `H5P'.
-
-* The new attribute API `H5A' has been added.  An attribute is a small 
-  dataset which can be attached to some other object (for instance, a
-  4x4 transformation matrix attached to a 3-dimensional dataset, or an 
-  English abstract attached to a group).
-
-* The error handling API `H5E' has been completed.  By default, when an
-  API function returns failure an error stack is displayed on the
-  standard error stream.  The H5Eset_auto() controls the automatic
-  printing and H5E_BEGIN_TRY/H5E_END_TRY macros can temporarily
-  disable the automatic error printing.
-
-* Support for large files and datasets (>2GB) has been added.  There
-  is an html document that describes how it works.  Some of the types
-  for function arguments have changed to support this: all arguments
-  pertaining to sizes of memory objects are `size_t' and all arguments 
-  pertaining to file sizes are `hsize_t'.
-
-* More data type conversions have been added although none of them are
-  fine tuned for performance.  There are new converters from integer
-  to integer and float to float, but not between integers and floating
-  points.  A bug has been fixed in the converter between compound
-  types.
-
-* The numbered types have been removed from the API: int8, uint8,
-  int16, uint16, int32, uint32, int64, uint64, float32, and float64.
-  Use standard C types instead.  Similarly, the numbered types were
-  removed from the H5T_NATIVE_* architecture; use unnumbered types
-  which correspond to the standard C types like H5T_NATIVE_INT.
-
-* More debugging support was added.  If tracing is enabled at
-  configuration time (the default) and the HDF5_TRACE environment
-  variable is set to a file descriptor then all API calls will emit
-  the function name, argument names and values, and return value on
-  that file number.  There is an html document that describes this.
-  If appropriate debugging options are enabled at configuration time,
-  some packages will display performance information on stderr.
-
-* Data types can be stored in the file as independent objects and
-  multiple datasets can share a data type.
-
-* The raw data I/O stream has been implemented and the application can 
-  control meta and raw data caches, so I/O performance should be
-  improved from the first alpha release.
-
-* Group and attribute query functions have been implemented so it is
-  now possible to find out the contents of a file with no prior
-  knowledge.
-
-* External raw data storage allows datasets to be written by other
-  applications or I/O libraries and described and accessed through
-  HDF5.
-
-* Hard and soft (symbolic) links are implemented which allow groups to 
-  share objects. Dangling and recursive symbolic links are supported.
-
-* User-defined data compression is implemented although we may
-  generalize the interface to allow arbitrary user-defined filters
-  which can be used for compression, checksums, encryption,
-  performance monitoring, etc.  The publicly-available `deflate'
-  method is predefined if the GNU libz.a can be found at configuration 
-  time.
-
-* The configuration scripts have been modified to make it easier to
-  build debugging vs. production versions of the library.
-
-* The library automatically checks that the application was compiled
-  with the correct version of header files.
-
-
-		    Parallel HDF5 Changes
-
-* Parallel support for fixed dimension datasets with contiguous or
-  chunked storages.  Also, support unlimited dimension datasets which
-  must use chunk storage.  No parallel support for compressed datasets.
-
-* Collective data transfer for H5Dread/H5Dwrite.  Collective access
-  support for datasets with contiguous storage only, thus only fixed
-  dimension datasets for now.
-
-* H5Pset_mpi and H5Pget_mpi no longer have the access_mode
-  argument.  It is taken over by the data-transfer property list
-  of H5Dread/H5Dwrite.
-
-* New functions H5Pset_xfer and H5Pget_xfer to handle the
-  specification of independent or collective data transfer_mode
-  in the dataset transfer properties list.  The properties
-  list can be used to specify data transfer mode in the H5Dwrite
-  and H5Dread function calls.
-
-* Added parallel support for datasets with chunked storage layout.
-  When a dataset is extend in a PHDF5 file, all processes that open
-  the file must collectively call H5Dextend with identical new dimension
-  sizes.
-
-
-			LIST OF API FUNCTIONS
-
-The following functions are implemented. Errors are returned if an
-attempt is made to use some feature which is not implemented and
-printing the error stack will show `not implemented yet'.
-
-Library
-   H5check		- check that lib version matches header version
-   H5open		- initialize library (happens automatically)
-   H5close		- shut down the library (happens automatically)
-   H5dont_atexit	- don't call H5close on exit
-   H5get_libversion	- retrieve library version info
-   H5check_version	- check for specific library version
-
-Property Lists
-   H5Pclose		- release template resources
-   H5Pcopy		- copy a template
-   H5Pcreate		- create a new template
-   H5Pget_chunk		- get chunked storage properties
-   H5Pset_chunk		- set chunked storage properties
-   H5Pget_class		- get template class
-   H5Pget_istore_k	- get chunked storage properties
-   H5Pset_istore_k	- set chunked storage properties
-   H5Pget_layout	- get raw data layout class
-   H5Pset_layout	- set raw data layout class
-   H5Pget_sizes		- get address and size sizes
-   H5Pset_sizes		- set address and size sizes
-   H5Pget_sym_k		- get symbol table storage properties
-   H5Pset_sym_k		- set symbol table storage properties
-   H5Pget_userblock	- get user-block size
-   H5Pset_userblock	- set user-block size
-   H5Pget_version	- get file version numbers
-   H5Pget_alignment	- get data alignment properties
-   H5Pset_alignment	- set data alignment properties
-   H5Pget_external_count- get count of external data files
-   H5Pget_external	- get information about an external data file
-   H5Pset_external	- add a new external data file to the list
-   H5Pget_driver	- get low-level file driver class
-   H5Pget_stdio		- get properties for stdio low-level driver
-   H5Pset_stdio		- set properties for stdio low-level driver
-   H5Pget_sec2		- get properties for sec2 low-level driver
-   H5Pset_sec2		- set properties for sec2 low-level driver
-   H5Pget_core		- get properties for core low-level driver
-   H5Pset_core		- set properties for core low-level driver
-   H5Pget_split		- get properties for split low-level driver
-   H5Pset_split		- set properties for split low-level driver
-   H5P_get_family	- get properties for family low-level driver
-   H5P_set_family	- set properties for family low-level driver
-   H5Pget_cache		- get meta- and raw-data caching properties
-   H5Pset_cache		- set meta- and raw-data caching properties
-   H5Pget_buffer	- get raw-data I/O pipe buffer properties
-   H5Pset_buffer	- set raw-data I/O pipe buffer properties
-   H5Pget_preserve	- get type conversion preservation properties
-   H5Pset_preserve	- set type conversion preservation properties
-   H5Pget_nfilters	- get number of raw data filters
-   H5Pget_filter	- get raw data filter properties
-   H5Pset_filter	- set raw data filter properties
-   H5Pset_deflate	- set deflate compression filter properties
-   H5Pget_mpi		- get MPI-IO properties
-   H5Pset_mpi		- set MPI-IO properties
-   H5Pget_xfer		- get data transfer properties
- + H5Pset_xfer		- set data transfer properties
- + H5Pset_preserve      - set dataset transfer property list status 
- + H5Pget_preserve      - get dataset transfer property list status
- + H5Pset_hyper_cache   - indicates whether to cache hyperslab blocks during I/O
- + H5Pget_hyper_cache   - returns information regarding the caching of 
-                          hyperslab blocks during I/O
- + H5Pget_btree_ratios  - sets B-tree split ratios for a dataset 
-                          transfer property list
- + H5Pset_btree_ratios  - gets B-tree split ratios for a dataset
-                          transfer property list
- + H5Pset_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length 
-                             datatype allocation
- + H5Pget_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length
-                             datatype allocation
-
-Datasets
-   H5Dclose		- release dataset resources
-   H5Dcreate		- create a new dataset
-   H5Dget_space		- get data space
-   H5Dget_type		- get data type
-   H5Dget_create_plist	- get dataset creation properties
-   H5Dopen		- open an existing dataset
-   H5Dread		- read raw data
-   H5Dwrite		- write raw data
-   H5Dextend		- extend a dataset
- + H5Diterate           - iterate over all selected elements in a dataspace
- + H5Dget_storage_size  - return the amount of storage required for a dataset
- + H5Dvlen_reclaim      - reclaim VL datatype memory buffers
-
-Attributes
-   H5Acreate		- create a new attribute
-   H5Aopen_name		- open an attribute by name
-   H5Aopen_idx		- open an attribute by number
-   H5Awrite		- write values into an attribute
-   H5Aread		- read values from an attribute
-   H5Aget_space		- get attribute data space
-   H5Aget_type		- get attribute data type
-   H5Aget_name		- get attribute name
-   H5Anum_attrs		- return the number of attributes for an object
-   H5Aiterate		- iterate over an object's attributes
-   H5Adelete		- delete an attribute
-   H5Aclose		- close an attribute
-
-Errors
-   H5Eclear		- clear the error stack
-   H5Eprint		- print an error stack
-   H5Eget_auto		- get automatic error reporting settings
-   H5Eset_auto		- set automatic error reporting
-   H5Ewalk		- iterate over the error stack
-   H5Ewalk_cb		- the default error stack iterator function
-   H5Eget_major		- get the message for the major error number
-   H5Eget_minor		- get the message for the minor error number
-
-Files
-   H5Fclose		- close a file and release resources
-   H5Fcreate		- create a new file
-   H5Fget_create_plist	- get file creation property list
-   H5Fget_access_plist	- get file access property list
-   H5Fis_hdf5		- determine if a file is an hdf5 file
-   H5Fopen		- open an existing file
-   H5Freopen            - reopen an HDF5 file
-   H5Fmount             - mount a file
-   H5Funmount           - unmount a file
-   H5Fflush             - flush all buffers associated with a file to disk
-
-Groups
-   H5Gclose		- close a group and release resources
-   H5Gcreate    	- create a new group
-   H5Gopen		- open an existing group
-   H5Giterate   	- iterate over the contents of a group
-   H5Gmove		- change the name of some object
-   H5Glink		- create a hard or soft link to an object
-   H5Gunlink    	- break the link between a name and an object
-   H5Gget_objinfo	- get information about a group entry
-   H5Gget_linkval	- get the value of a soft link
-   H5Gget_comment	- get the comment string for an object
-   H5Gset_comment	- set the comment string for an object
-
-Dataspaces
-   H5Screate	        - create a new data space
-   H5Scopy		- copy a data space
-   H5Sclose		- release data space
-   H5Screate_simple	- create a new simple data space
-   H5Sset_space		- set simple data space extents
-   H5Sis_simple		- determine if data space is simple
-   H5Sset_extent_simple	- set simple data space dimensionality and size
-   H5Sget_simple_extent_npoints	- get number of points in simple extent
-   H5Sget_simple_extent_ndims - get simple data space dimensionality
-   H5Sget_simple_extent_dims - get simple data space size
-   H5Sget_simple_extent_type - get type of simple extent
-   H5Sset_extent_none	- reset extent to be empty
-   H5Sextent_copy	- copy the extent from one data space to another
-   H5Sget_select_npoints - get number of points selected for I/O
-   H5Sselect_hyperslab	- set hyperslab dataspace selection
-   H5Sselect_elements   - set element sequence dataspace selection
-   H5Sselect_all	- select entire extent for I/O
-   H5Sselect_none	- deselect all elements of extent
-   H5Soffset_simple	- set selection offset
-   H5Sselect_valid	- determine if selection is valid for extent
- + H5Sget_select_hyper_nblocks   - get number of hyperslab blocks
- + H5Sget_select_hyper_blocklist - get the list of hyperslab blocks 
-                                   currently selected
- + H5Sget_select_elem_npoints    - get the number of element points 
-                                   in the current selection
- + H5Sget_select_elem_pointlist  - get the list of element points 
-                                   currently selected
- + H5Sget_select_bounds          - gets the bounding box containing 
-                                   the current selection
-
-Datatypes
-   H5Tclose		- release data type resources
-   H5Topen		- open a named data type
-   H5Tcommit		- name a data type
-   H5Tcommitted		- determine if a type is named
-   H5Tcopy		- copy a data type
-   H5Tcreate		- create a new data type
-   H5Tequal		- compare two data types
-   H5Tlock		- lock type to prevent changes
-   H5Tfind		- find a data type conversion function
-   H5Tconvert		- convert data from one type to another
-   H5Tregister    	- register a conversion function
-   H5Tunregister	- remove a conversion function
-   H5Tget_overflow	- get function that handles overflow conv. cases
-   H5Tset_overflow	- set function to handle overflow conversion cases
-   H5Tget_class		- get data type class
-   H5Tget_cset		- get character set
-   H5Tget_ebias		- get exponent bias
-   H5Tget_fields	- get floating point fields
-   H5Tget_inpad		- get inter-field padding
-   H5Tget_member_dims	- get struct member dimensions
-   H5Tget_member_name	- get struct member name
-   H5Tget_member_offset	- get struct member byte offset
-   H5Tget_member_type	- get struct member type
-   H5Tget_nmembers	- get number of struct members
-   H5Tget_norm		- get floating point normalization
-   H5Tget_offset	- get bit offset within type
-   H5Tget_order		- get byte order
-   H5Tget_pad		- get padding type
-   H5Tget_precision	- get precision in bits
-   H5Tget_sign		- get integer sign type
-   H5Tget_size		- get size in bytes
-   H5Tget_strpad	- get string padding
-   H5Tinsert		- insert scalar struct member
-   H5Tinsert_array	- insert array struct member
-   H5Tpack		- pack struct members
-   H5Tset_cset		- set character set
-   H5Tset_ebias		- set exponent bias
-   H5Tset_fields	- set floating point fields
-   H5Tset_inpad		- set inter-field padding
-   H5Tset_norm		- set floating point normalization
-   H5Tset_offset	- set bit offset within type
-   H5Tset_order		- set byte order
-   H5Tset_pad		- set padding type
-   H5Tset_precision	- set precision in bits
-   H5Tset_sign		- set integer sign type
-   H5Tset_size		- set size in bytes
-   H5Tset_strpad	- set string padding
- + H5Tget_super         - return the base datatype from which a 
-                          datatype is derived
- + H5Tvlen_create       - creates a new variable-length dataype
- + H5Tenum_create       - creates a new enumeration datatype
- + H5Tenum_insert       - inserts a new enumeration datatype member
- + H5Tenum_nameof       - returns the symbol name corresponding to a 
-                          specified member of an enumeration datatype
- + H5Tvalueof           - return the value corresponding to a 
-                          specified member of an enumeration datatype 
- + H5Tget_member_value  - return the value of an enumeration datatype member
- + H5Tset_tag           - tags an opaque datatype
- + H5Tget_tag           - gets the tag associated with an opaque datatype
-
- - H5Tregister_hard	- register specific type conversion function
- - H5Tregister_soft	- register general type conversion function
-
-Filters
-   H5Tregister		- register a conversion function 
-
-Compression
-   H5Zregister		- register new compression and uncompression 
-                          functions for a method specified by a method number
-
-Identifiers
- + H5Iget_type          - retrieve the type of an object
-
-References
- + H5Rcreate            - creates a reference
- + H5Rdereference       - open the HDF5 object referenced
- + H5Rget_region        - retrieve a dataspace with the specified region selected
- + H5Rget_object_type   - retrieve the type of object that an 
-                          object reference points to
-
-Ragged Arrays (alpha)
-   H5RAcreate		- create a new ragged array
-   H5RAopen		- open an existing array
-   H5RAclose		- close a ragged array
-   H5RAwrite		- write to an array
-   H5RAread		- read from an array
-
-</pre>
 </dir>
+<p>&nbsp;
 
 
-<!--
-<h2>Release 1.4</h2>
-<dir>
-
-    <h3>New Functions</h3>
-
-    <h3>Deleted Functions</h3>
+<h2>This and Prior Releases: The RELEASE and HISTORY Files</h2>
 
-    <h3>Functions with Changed Syntax</h3>
-
-</dir>
-<h2>Release 1.2.2</h2>
 <dir>
-
+    The HDF5 source code, as distributed to users and developers, 
+    contains two files that will be of interest to readers of this 
+    document.  Both files are located at the top level of the 
+    source code tree (i.e., in <code>.../hdf5/</code>) and are 
+    duplicated here for your reference:
+    <p>
+    <dl>
+      <dt><a href="RELEASE.txt" target="ExtWin">RELEASE</a>
+        <dd>Technical notes regarding the release, including 
+            new features and the changes since the last release, 
+            notes regarding new or revised utilities,
+            notes regarding alternative language APIs (Fortran90, C++),
+            bugs fixed since the last release,
+            platforms on which the release has been tested, 
+            and
+            known problems. 
+            This is the file commonly known among developers as 
+            "the release notes."
+      <p>
+      <dt><a href="HISTORY.txt" target="ExtWin">HISTORY</a>
+        <dd>A release-by-release history of the HDF5 library.  
+            This file is a compiled set of the release notes
+            (i.e., the RELEASE files) from prior releases.
+    <dl>
 </dir>
-<h2>Release 1.2.1</h2>
-<dir>
-
-</dir>
-<h2>Release 1.2</h2>
-<dir>
-
-</dir>
-<h2>Release 1.0.1</h2>
-<dir>
-
-</dir>
-<h2>Release 1.0</h2>
-<dir>
-
-</dir>
--->
-
 
 
 
diff --git a/doc/html/ADGuide/HISTORY.txt b/doc/html/ADGuide/HISTORY.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79f5065
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/html/ADGuide/HISTORY.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,984 @@
+HDF5 HISTORY
+============
+
+CONTENTS
+I.   Release Information for hdf5-1.2.2
+II.  Release Information for hdf5-1.2.1
+III. Release Information for hdf5-1.2.0
+     A. Platforms Supported
+     B. Known Problems
+     C. Changes Since Version 1.0.1  
+        1. Documentation
+        2. Configuration
+        3. Debugging
+        4. Datatypes
+        5. Dataspaces
+        6. Persistent Pointers
+        7. Parallel Support
+        8. New API Functions
+           a. Property List Interface
+           b. Dataset Interface
+           c. Dataspace Interface
+           d. Datatype Interface
+           e. Identifier Interface
+           f. Reference Interface
+           g. Ragged Arrays
+        9. Tools
+
+IV.  Changes from Release 1.0.0 to Release 1.0.1
+V.   Changes from the Beta 1.0.0 Release to Release 1.0.0
+VI.  Changes from the Second Alpha 1.0.0 Release to the Beta 1.0.0 Release
+VII. Changes from the First Alpha 1.0.0 Release to the 
+         Second Alpha 1.0.0 Release
+
+[Search on the string '%%%%' for per-release section breaks.]
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+%%%%1.2.2%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.2.2 (6/23/00)
+
+I. Release Information for hdf5-1.2.2
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+This document describes the differences between HDF5-1.2.1 and 
+HDF5-1.2.2, and contains information on the platforms where HDF5-1.2.2
+was tested and known problems in HDF5-1.2.2. 
+
+The HDF5 documentation can be found on the NCSA ftp server 
+(ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) in the directory:
+
+     /HDF/HDF5/docs/
+
+For more information look at the HDF5 home page at:
+   
+    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/
+
+If you have any questions or comments, please send them to:
+
+    hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+- Features Added since HDF5-1.2.1 
+- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.2.1
+- Known Problems
+- Platforms Tested
+
+
+Features Added since HDF5-1.2.1
+===============================
+   * Added internal free-lists to reduce memory required by the library and
+     H5garbage_collect API function.
+   * h5dump displays opaque and bitfield types.
+   * New features added to snapshots.  Use 'snapshot help' to see a
+     complete list of features.
+   * Improved configure to detect if MPIO routines are available when
+     parallel mode is requested.
+
+Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.2.1
+==========================
+   * h5dump correctly displays compound datatypes, including simple and
+     nested compound types.
+   * h5dump correctly displays the committed copy of predefined types.
+   * Corrected an error in h5toh4 which did not convert the 32-bit
+     int from HDF5 to HDF4 correctly for the T3E platform.
+   * Corrected a floating point number conversion error for the
+     Cray J90 platform.  The error did not convert the value 0.0
+     correctly.
+   * Fixed error in H5Giterate which was not updating the "index" parameter
+     correctly.
+   * Fixed error in hyperslab iteration which was not walking through the
+     correct sequence of array elements if hyperslabs were staggered in a
+     certain pattern.
+   * Fixed several other problems in hyperslab iteration code.
+   * Fixed another H5Giterate bug which caused groups with large numbers
+     of objects in them to misbehave when the callback function returned
+     non-zero values.
+   * Changed return type of H5Aiterate and H5A_operator_t typedef to be
+     herr_t, to align them with the dataset and group iterator functions.
+   * Changed H5Screate_simple and H5Sset_extent_simple to not allow dimensions
+     of size 0 without the same dimension being unlimited.
+   * Improved metadata hashing & caching algorithms to avoid
+     many hash flushes and also removed some redundant I/O when moving metadata
+     blocks in the file.
+   * The libhdf5.settings file shows the correct machine byte-sex.
+   * The "struct(opt)" type conversion function which gets invoked for
+     certain compound datatype conversions was fixed for nested compound
+     types. This required a small change in the datatype conversion
+     function API.
+
+Known Problems
+==============
+
+o SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2:  hyperslab selections will 
+  fail if library is compiled using optimization of any level.
+o TFLOPS: dsets test fails if compiled with optimization turned on.
+o J90: tools fail to dispay data for the datasets with a compound datatype. 
+
+Platforms Tested
+================
+
+  AIX 4.3.3 (IBM SP)            3.6.6                               | binaries
+                                mpicc using mpich 1.1.2             | are not
+                                mpicc_r using IBM MPI-IO prototype  | available
+  AIX 4.3.2.0 (IBM SP)          xlc 5.0.1.0
+  Cray J90 10.0.0.7             cc 6.3.0.2
+  Cray T3E 2.0.5.29             cc 6.3.0.2
+                                mpt.1.3
+  FreeBSD 4.0                   gcc 2.95.2
+  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32
+  HP-UX B.11.00                 HP92453-01 A.11.00.13 HP C Compiler 
+                                (static library only, h5toh4 tool is not available) 
+  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30
+  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
+                                mpt.1.4
+
+  Linux 2.2.10 SMP              gcc 2.95.1 
+                                mpicc(gcc-2.95.1)
+                                gcc (egcs-2.91.66)
+                                mpicc (egcs-2.91.66)
+  Linux 2.2.16 (RedHat 6.2)     gcc 2.95.2
+
+  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
+  SunOS 5.6                     cc WorkShop Compilers 5.0 no optimization
+  SunOS 5.7                     cc WorkShop Compilers 5.0
+  SolarisX86 SunOS 5.5.1        gcc version 2.7.2 with --disable-hsizet
+  TFLOPS 3.2.1                  pgcc Rel 3.1-3i
+                                mpich-1.1.2 with local changes
+  Windows NT4.0 sp5             MSVC++ 6.0
+  Windows 98                    MSVC++ 6.0
+  Windows 2000                  MSVC++ 6.0
+
+
+
+%%%%1.2.1%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.2.1
+
+II. Release Information for hdf5-1.2.1
+
+Bug fixes since HDF5-1.2.0
+==========================
+
+Configuration
+-------------
+
+   * The hdf5.h include file was fixed to allow the HDF5 Library to be compiled
+     with other libraries/applications that use GNU autoconf. 
+   * Configuration for parallel HDF5 was improved. Configure now attempts to
+     link with libmpi.a and/or libmpio.a as the MPI libraries by default.
+     It also uses "mpirun" to launch MPI tests by default.  It tests to
+     link MPIO routines during the configuration stage, rather than failing
+     later as before.  One can just do "./configure --enable-parallel"
+     if the MPI library is in the system library.
+
+Library
+-------
+
+   * Error was fixed which was not allowing dataset region references to have
+     their regions retrieved correctly.
+   * Added internal free-lists to reduce memory required by the library and
+     H5garbage_collect API function
+   * Fixed error in H5Giterate which was not updating the "index" parameter
+     correctly.
+   * Fixed error in hyperslab iteration which was not walking through the
+     correct sequence of array elements if hyperslabs were staggered in a
+     certain pattern
+   * Fixed several other problems in hyperslab iteration code.
+
+Tests
+------
+
+   * Added additional tests for group and attribute iteration.
+   * Added additional test for staggered hyperslab iteration.
+   * Added additional test for random 5-D hyperslab selection.
+
+Tools
+------
+
+   * Added an option, -V, to show the version information of h5dump.
+   * Fixed a core dumping bug of h5toh4 when executed on platforms like 
+     TFLOPS.
+   * The test script for h5toh4 used to not able to detect the hdp
+     dumper command was not valid.  It now detects and reports the
+     failure of hdp execution.
+
+Documentation
+-------------
+
+   * User's Guide and Reference Manual were updated. 
+     See doc/html/PSandPDF/index.html for more details. 
+
+   
+Platforms Tested:
+================
+Note: Due to the nature of bug fixes, only static versions of the library and tools were tested.
+
+
+  AIX 4.3.2 (IBM SP)            3.6.6
+  Cray T3E 2.0.4.81             cc 6.3.0.1
+                                mpt.1.3
+  FreeBSD 3.3-STABLE            gcc 2.95.2
+  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32
+  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30
+  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
+                                mpt.1.3 (SGI MPI 3.2.0.0)
+
+  Linux 2.2.10 SuSE             egcs-2.91.66               configured with
+  (i686-pc-linux-gnu)                                      --disable-hsizet
+                                mpich-1.2.0 egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux 
+
+  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
+  SunOS 5.6                     cc WorkShop Compilers 4.2  no optimization
+  SunOS 5.7                     cc WorkShop Compilers 5.0
+  TFLOPS 2.8                    cicc (pgcc Rel 3.0-5i)
+                                mpich-1.1.2 with local changes
+  Windows NT4.0 sp5             MSVC++ 6.0
+
+Known Problems:
+==============
+
+o SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2:  Hyperslab selections will 
+  fail if library is compiled using optimization of any level.
+
+
+
+%%%%1.2.0%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.2.0
+         
+III. Release Information for hdf5-1.2.0
+
+A. Platforms Supported
+   -------------------
+
+Operating systems listed below with compiler information and MPI library, if
+applicable, are systems that HDF5 1.2.0 was tested on.
+
+                           Compiler & libraries
+  Platform                      Information              Comment
+  --------                      ----------               -------- 
+                                
+  AIX 4.3.2 (IBM SP)            3.6.6
+
+  Cray J90 10.0.0.6             cc 6.3.0.0
+
+  Cray T3E 2.0.4.61             cc 6.2.1.0 
+                                mpt.1.3
+
+  FreeBSD 3.2                   gcc 2.95.1
+
+  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32
+                                gcc 2.8.1
+
+  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30 
+
+  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
+  			        mpt.1.3 (SGI MPI 3.2.0.0)
+
+  Linux 2.2.10                  egcs-2.91.66               configured with
+  						         --disable-hsizet
+                                                           lbraries: glibc2
+
+  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
+
+  SunOS 5.6                     cc WorkShop Compilers 4.2   
+                                                           no optimization
+  			        gcc 2.8.1
+
+  SunOS 5.7                     cc WorkShop Compilers 5.0
+                                gcc 2.8.1
+ 
+  TFLOPS 2.7.1                  cicc (pgcc Rel 3.0-4i)
+  			        mpich-1.1.2 with local changes
+
+  Windows NT4.0 intel           MSVC++ 5.0 and 6.0
+
+  Windows NT alpha 4.0          MSVC++ 5.0 
+
+  Windows 98                    MSVC++ 5.0
+
+
+B. Known Problems
+   --------------
+
+* NT alpha 4.0
+  Dumper utiliy h5dump fails if linked with DLL.
+
+* SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2
+  Hyperslab selections will fail if library is compiled using optimization
+  of any level.
+
+ 
+C. Changes Since Version 1.0.1
+   ---------------------------
+
+1. Documentation
+   -------------
+
+* More examples
+
+* Updated user guide, reference manual, and format specification.
+
+* Self-contained documentation for installations isolated from the
+  Internet.
+
+* HDF5 Tutorial was added to the documentation  
+
+2. Configuration
+   -------------
+
+* Better detection and support for MPI-IO.
+
+* Recognition of compilers with known code generation problems.
+
+* Support for various compilers on a single architecture (e.g., the
+  native compiler and the GNU compilers).
+
+* Ability to build from read-only media and with different compilers
+  and/or options concurrently.
+
+* Added a libhdf5.settings file which summarizes the configuration
+  information and is installed along with the library.
+
+* Builds a shared library on most systems that support it.
+
+* Support for Cray T3E, J90 and Windows/NT.
+
+3. Debugging
+   ---------
+
+* Improved control and redirection of debugging and tracing messages.
+
+4. Datatypes
+   ---------
+
+* Optimizations to compound datatype conversions and I/O operations.
+
+* Added nearly 100 optimized conversion functions for native datatypes 
+  including support for non-aligned data.
+
+* Added support for bitfield, opaque, and enumeration types.
+
+* Added distinctions between signed and unsigned char types to the
+  list of predefined native hdf5 datatypes.
+
+* Added HDF5 type definitions for C9x types like int32_t.
+
+* Application-defined type conversion functions can handle non-packed
+  data.
+
+* Changed the H5Tunregister() function to use wildcards when matching
+  conversion functions.  H5Tregister_hard() and H5Tregister_soft()
+  were combined into H5Tregister().
+
+* Support for variable-length datatypes (arrays of varying length per
+  dataset element). Variable length strings currently supported only
+  as variable length arrays of 1-byte integers.
+
+5. Dataspaces
+   ----------
+
+* New query functions for selections.
+
+* I/O operations bypass the stripmining loop and go directly to
+  storage for certain contiguous selections in the absense of type
+  conversions.  In other cases the stripmining buffers are used more
+  effectively.
+
+* Reduced the number of I/O requests under certain circumstances,
+  improving performance on systems with high I/O latency.
+
+6. Persistent Pointers
+   -------------------
+
+* Object (serial and parallel) and dataset region (serial only)
+  references are implemented.
+
+7. Parallel Support
+   ----------------
+
+* Improved parallel I/O performance.
+
+* Supported new platforms: Cray T3E, Linux, DEC Cluster.
+
+* Use vendor supported version of MPIO on SGI O2K and Cray platforms.
+
+* Improved the algorithm that translates an HDF5 hyperslab selection
+  into an MPI type for better collective I/O performance.
+
+8. New API functions 
+   -----------------
+
+  a. Property List Interface:
+     ------------------------
+
+  H5Pset_xfer		- set data transfer properties
+  H5Pset_preserve      - set dataset transfer property list status 
+  H5Pget_preserve      - get dataset transfer property list status
+  H5Pset_hyper_cache   - indicates whether to cache hyperslab blocks during I/O
+  H5Pget_hyper_cache   - returns information regarding the caching of 
+                         hyperslab blocks during I/O
+  H5Pget_btree_ratios  - sets B-tree split ratios for a dataset 
+                         transfer property list
+  H5Pset_btree_ratios  - gets B-tree split ratios for a dataset
+                         transfer property list
+  H5Pset_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length 
+                            datatype allocation
+  H5Pget_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length
+                            datatype allocation
+
+  b. Dataset Interface:
+     ------------------
+
+  H5Diterate           - iterate over all selected elements in a dataspace
+  H5Dget_storage_size  - return the amount of storage required for a dataset
+  H5Dvlen_reclaim      - reclaim VL datatype memory buffers
+
+  c. Dataspace Interface:
+     --------------------
+  H5Sget_select_hyper_nblocks   - get number of hyperslab blocks
+  H5Sget_select_hyper_blocklist - get the list of hyperslab blocks 
+                                  currently selected
+  H5Sget_select_elem_npoints    - get the number of element points 
+                                  in the current selection
+  H5Sget_select_elem_pointlist  - get the list of element points 
+                                  currently selected
+  H5Sget_select_bounds          - gets the bounding box containing 
+                                  the current selection
+
+  d. Datatype Interface:
+     -------------------
+  H5Tget_super         - return the base datatype from which a 
+                         datatype is derived
+  H5Tvlen_create       - creates a new variable-length dataype
+  H5Tenum_create       - creates a new enumeration datatype
+  H5Tenum_insert       - inserts a new enumeration datatype member
+  H5Tenum_nameof       - returns the symbol name corresponding to a 
+                         specified member of an enumeration datatype
+  H5Tvalueof           - return the value corresponding to a 
+                         specified member of an enumeration datatype 
+  H5Tget_member_value  - return the value of an enumeration datatype member
+  H5Tset_tag           - tags an opaque datatype
+  H5Tget_tag           - gets the tag associated with an opaque datatype
+
+  e. Identifier Interface:
+     ---------------------
+  H5Iget_type          - retrieve the type of an object
+
+  f. Reference Interface:
+     --------------------
+  H5Rcreate            - creates a reference
+  H5Rdereference       - open the HDF5 object referenced
+  H5Rget_region        - retrieve a dataspace with the specified region selected
+  H5Rget_object_type   - retrieve the type of object that an 
+                         object reference points to
+
+  g. Ragged Arrays (alpha) (names of those API functions were changed):
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------
+   H5RAcreate		- create a new ragged array (old name was H5Rcreate)
+   H5RAopen		- open an existing array    (old name was H5Ropen)
+   H5RAclose		- close a ragged array      (old name was H5Rclose)
+   H5RAwrite		- write to an array         (old name was H5Rwrite)
+   H5RAread		- read from an array        (old name was H5Rread)
+
+
+9. Tools
+   -----
+
+* Enhancements to the h5ls tool including the ability to list objects
+  from more than one file, to display raw hexadecimal data, to
+  show file addresses for raw data, to format output more reasonably,
+  to show object attributes, and to perform a recursive listing, 
+
+* Enhancements to h5dump: support new data types added since previous
+  versions.
+
+* h5toh4: An hdf5 to hdf4 converter.
+
+
+
+%%%%1.0.1%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.0.1
+         
+IV. Changes from Release 1.0.0 to Release 1.0.1
+
+* [Improvement]: configure sets up the Makefile in the parallel tests
+  suit (testpar/) correctly.
+
+* [Bug-Fix]: Configure failed for all IRIX versions other than 6.3.
+  It now configures correctly for all IRIX 6.x version.
+
+* Released Parallel HDF5 
+
+     Supported Features:
+     ------------------
+
+     HDF5 files are accessed according to the communicator and INFO
+     object defined in the property list set by H5Pset_mpi.
+
+     Independent read and write accesses to fixed and extendable dimension
+     datasets.
+
+     Collective read and write accesses to fixed dimension datasets.
+
+     Supported Platforms:
+     -------------------
+
+     Intel Red
+     IBM SP2
+     SGI Origin 2000
+
+     Changes In This Release: 
+     -----------------------
+
+   o Support of Access to Extendable Dimension Datasets.
+     Extendable dimension datasets must use chunked storage methods.
+     A new function, H5Dextend, is created to extend the current
+     dimensions of a dataset.  The current release requires the
+     MPI application must make a collective call to extend the
+     dimensions of an extendable dataset before writing to the
+     newly extended area.  (The serial does not require the
+     call of H5Dextend.  The dimensions of an extendable
+     dataset is increased when data is written to beyond the
+     current dimensions but within the maximum dimensions.)
+     The required collective call of H5Dextend may be relaxed
+     in future release.
+
+     This release only support independent read and write accesses
+     to extendable datasets.  Collective accesses to extendable
+     datasets will be implemented in future releases.
+
+   o Collective access to fixed dimension datasets.
+     Collective access to a dataset can be specified in the transfer
+     property list argument in H5Dread and H5Dwrite.  The current
+     release supports collective access to fixed dimension datasets.
+     Collective access to extendable datasets will be implemented in
+     future releases.
+
+   o HDF5 files are opened according to Communicator and INFO object.
+     H5Dopen now records the communicator and INFO setup by H5Pset_mmpi
+     and pass them to the corresponding MPIO open file calls for
+     processing.
+
+   o This release has been tested on IBM SP2, Intel Red and SGI Origin 2000
+     systems.  It uses the ROMIO version of MPIO interface for parallel
+     I/O supports.
+
+
+
+%%%%1.0.0%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.0.0
+
+V. Changes from the Beta 1.0.0 Release to Release 1.0.0
+
+* Added fill values for datasets.  For contiguous datasets fill value
+  performance may be quite poor since the fill value is written to the 
+  entire dataset when the dataset is created.  This will be remedied
+  in a future version.  Chunked datasets using fill values do not
+  incur any additional overhead. See H5Pset_fill_value().
+
+* Multiple hdf5 files can be "mounted" on one another to create a
+  larger virtual file. See H5Fmount().
+
+* Object names can be removed or changed but objects are never
+  actually removed from the file yet. See H5Gunlink() and H5Gmove().
+
+* Added a tuning mechanism for B-trees to insure that sequential
+  writes to chunked datasets use less overhead.  See H5Pset_btree_ratios().
+
+* Various optimizations and bug fixes.
+
+
+
+%%%%1.0.0 Beta%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.0.0 Beta
+
+VI. Changes from the Second Alpha 1.0.0 Release to the Beta 1.0.0 Release
+
+* Strided hyperslab selections in dataspaces now working.
+
+* The compression API has been replaced with a more general filter
+  API.  See doc/html/Filters.html for details.
+
+* Alpha-quality 2d ragged arrays are implemented as a layer built on
+  top of other hdf5 objects.  The API and storage format will almost
+  certainly change.
+
+* More debugging support including API tracing.  See Debugging.html.
+
+* C and Fortran style 8-bit fixed-length character string types are
+  supported with space or null padding or null termination and
+  translations between them.
+
+* Added function H5Fflush() to write all cached data immediately to
+  the file.
+
+* Datasets maintain a modification time which can be retrieved with
+  H5Gstat().
+
+* The h5ls tool can display much more information, including all the
+  values of a dataset.
+
+
+
+%%%%1.0.0 Alpha 2%%%%   Release Information for hdf5-1.0.0 Alpha 2
+
+VII. Changes from the First Alpha 1.0.0 Release to 
+     the Second Alpha 1.0.0 Release
+
+* Two of the packages have been renamed.  The data space API has been
+  renamed from `H5P' to `H5S' and the property list (template) API has 
+  been renamed from `H5C' to `H5P'.
+
+* The new attribute API `H5A' has been added.  An attribute is a small 
+  dataset which can be attached to some other object (for instance, a
+  4x4 transformation matrix attached to a 3-dimensional dataset, or an 
+  English abstract attached to a group).
+
+* The error handling API `H5E' has been completed.  By default, when an
+  API function returns failure an error stack is displayed on the
+  standard error stream.  The H5Eset_auto() controls the automatic
+  printing and H5E_BEGIN_TRY/H5E_END_TRY macros can temporarily
+  disable the automatic error printing.
+
+* Support for large files and datasets (>2GB) has been added.  There
+  is an html document that describes how it works.  Some of the types
+  for function arguments have changed to support this: all arguments
+  pertaining to sizes of memory objects are `size_t' and all arguments 
+  pertaining to file sizes are `hsize_t'.
+
+* More data type conversions have been added although none of them are
+  fine tuned for performance.  There are new converters from integer
+  to integer and float to float, but not between integers and floating
+  points.  A bug has been fixed in the converter between compound
+  types.
+
+* The numbered types have been removed from the API: int8, uint8,
+  int16, uint16, int32, uint32, int64, uint64, float32, and float64.
+  Use standard C types instead.  Similarly, the numbered types were
+  removed from the H5T_NATIVE_* architecture; use unnumbered types
+  which correspond to the standard C types like H5T_NATIVE_INT.
+
+* More debugging support was added.  If tracing is enabled at
+  configuration time (the default) and the HDF5_TRACE environment
+  variable is set to a file descriptor then all API calls will emit
+  the function name, argument names and values, and return value on
+  that file number.  There is an html document that describes this.
+  If appropriate debugging options are enabled at configuration time,
+  some packages will display performance information on stderr.
+
+* Data types can be stored in the file as independent objects and
+  multiple datasets can share a data type.
+
+* The raw data I/O stream has been implemented and the application can 
+  control meta and raw data caches, so I/O performance should be
+  improved from the first alpha release.
+
+* Group and attribute query functions have been implemented so it is
+  now possible to find out the contents of a file with no prior
+  knowledge.
+
+* External raw data storage allows datasets to be written by other
+  applications or I/O libraries and described and accessed through
+  HDF5.
+
+* Hard and soft (symbolic) links are implemented which allow groups to 
+  share objects. Dangling and recursive symbolic links are supported.
+
+* User-defined data compression is implemented although we may
+  generalize the interface to allow arbitrary user-defined filters
+  which can be used for compression, checksums, encryption,
+  performance monitoring, etc.  The publicly-available `deflate'
+  method is predefined if the GNU libz.a can be found at configuration 
+  time.
+
+* The configuration scripts have been modified to make it easier to
+  build debugging vs. production versions of the library.
+
+* The library automatically checks that the application was compiled
+  with the correct version of header files.
+
+
+		    Parallel HDF5 Changes
+
+* Parallel support for fixed dimension datasets with contiguous or
+  chunked storages.  Also, support unlimited dimension datasets which
+  must use chunk storage.  No parallel support for compressed datasets.
+
+* Collective data transfer for H5Dread/H5Dwrite.  Collective access
+  support for datasets with contiguous storage only, thus only fixed
+  dimension datasets for now.
+
+* H5Pset_mpi and H5Pget_mpi no longer have the access_mode
+  argument.  It is taken over by the data-transfer property list
+  of H5Dread/H5Dwrite.
+
+* New functions H5Pset_xfer and H5Pget_xfer to handle the
+  specification of independent or collective data transfer_mode
+  in the dataset transfer properties list.  The properties
+  list can be used to specify data transfer mode in the H5Dwrite
+  and H5Dread function calls.
+
+* Added parallel support for datasets with chunked storage layout.
+  When a dataset is extend in a PHDF5 file, all processes that open
+  the file must collectively call H5Dextend with identical new dimension
+  sizes.
+
+
+			LIST OF API FUNCTIONS
+
+The following functions are implemented. Errors are returned if an
+attempt is made to use some feature which is not implemented and
+printing the error stack will show `not implemented yet'.
+
+Library
+   H5check		- check that lib version matches header version
+   H5open		- initialize library (happens automatically)
+   H5close		- shut down the library (happens automatically)
+   H5dont_atexit	- don't call H5close on exit
+   H5get_libversion	- retrieve library version info
+   H5check_version	- check for specific library version
+
+Property Lists
+   H5Pclose		- release template resources
+   H5Pcopy		- copy a template
+   H5Pcreate		- create a new template
+   H5Pget_chunk		- get chunked storage properties
+   H5Pset_chunk		- set chunked storage properties
+   H5Pget_class		- get template class
+   H5Pget_istore_k	- get chunked storage properties
+   H5Pset_istore_k	- set chunked storage properties
+   H5Pget_layout	- get raw data layout class
+   H5Pset_layout	- set raw data layout class
+   H5Pget_sizes		- get address and size sizes
+   H5Pset_sizes		- set address and size sizes
+   H5Pget_sym_k		- get symbol table storage properties
+   H5Pset_sym_k		- set symbol table storage properties
+   H5Pget_userblock	- get user-block size
+   H5Pset_userblock	- set user-block size
+   H5Pget_version	- get file version numbers
+   H5Pget_alignment	- get data alignment properties
+   H5Pset_alignment	- set data alignment properties
+   H5Pget_external_count- get count of external data files
+   H5Pget_external	- get information about an external data file
+   H5Pset_external	- add a new external data file to the list
+   H5Pget_driver	- get low-level file driver class
+   H5Pget_stdio		- get properties for stdio low-level driver
+   H5Pset_stdio		- set properties for stdio low-level driver
+   H5Pget_sec2		- get properties for sec2 low-level driver
+   H5Pset_sec2		- set properties for sec2 low-level driver
+   H5Pget_core		- get properties for core low-level driver
+   H5Pset_core		- set properties for core low-level driver
+   H5Pget_split		- get properties for split low-level driver
+   H5Pset_split		- set properties for split low-level driver
+   H5P_get_family	- get properties for family low-level driver
+   H5P_set_family	- set properties for family low-level driver
+   H5Pget_cache		- get meta- and raw-data caching properties
+   H5Pset_cache		- set meta- and raw-data caching properties
+   H5Pget_buffer	- get raw-data I/O pipe buffer properties
+   H5Pset_buffer	- set raw-data I/O pipe buffer properties
+   H5Pget_preserve	- get type conversion preservation properties
+   H5Pset_preserve	- set type conversion preservation properties
+   H5Pget_nfilters	- get number of raw data filters
+   H5Pget_filter	- get raw data filter properties
+   H5Pset_filter	- set raw data filter properties
+   H5Pset_deflate	- set deflate compression filter properties
+   H5Pget_mpi		- get MPI-IO properties
+   H5Pset_mpi		- set MPI-IO properties
+   H5Pget_xfer		- get data transfer properties
+ + H5Pset_xfer		- set data transfer properties
+ + H5Pset_preserve      - set dataset transfer property list status 
+ + H5Pget_preserve      - get dataset transfer property list status
+ + H5Pset_hyper_cache   - indicates whether to cache hyperslab blocks during I/O
+ + H5Pget_hyper_cache   - returns information regarding the caching of 
+                          hyperslab blocks during I/O
+ + H5Pget_btree_ratios  - sets B-tree split ratios for a dataset 
+                          transfer property list
+ + H5Pset_btree_ratios  - gets B-tree split ratios for a dataset
+                          transfer property list
+ + H5Pset_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length 
+                             datatype allocation
+ + H5Pget_vlen_mem_manager - sets the memory manager for variable-length
+                             datatype allocation
+
+Datasets
+   H5Dclose		- release dataset resources
+   H5Dcreate		- create a new dataset
+   H5Dget_space		- get data space
+   H5Dget_type		- get data type
+   H5Dget_create_plist	- get dataset creation properties
+   H5Dopen		- open an existing dataset
+   H5Dread		- read raw data
+   H5Dwrite		- write raw data
+   H5Dextend		- extend a dataset
+ + H5Diterate           - iterate over all selected elements in a dataspace
+ + H5Dget_storage_size  - return the amount of storage required for a dataset
+ + H5Dvlen_reclaim      - reclaim VL datatype memory buffers
+
+Attributes
+   H5Acreate		- create a new attribute
+   H5Aopen_name		- open an attribute by name
+   H5Aopen_idx		- open an attribute by number
+   H5Awrite		- write values into an attribute
+   H5Aread		- read values from an attribute
+   H5Aget_space		- get attribute data space
+   H5Aget_type		- get attribute data type
+   H5Aget_name		- get attribute name
+   H5Anum_attrs		- return the number of attributes for an object
+   H5Aiterate		- iterate over an object's attributes
+   H5Adelete		- delete an attribute
+   H5Aclose		- close an attribute
+
+Errors
+   H5Eclear		- clear the error stack
+   H5Eprint		- print an error stack
+   H5Eget_auto		- get automatic error reporting settings
+   H5Eset_auto		- set automatic error reporting
+   H5Ewalk		- iterate over the error stack
+   H5Ewalk_cb		- the default error stack iterator function
+   H5Eget_major		- get the message for the major error number
+   H5Eget_minor		- get the message for the minor error number
+
+Files
+   H5Fclose		- close a file and release resources
+   H5Fcreate		- create a new file
+   H5Fget_create_plist	- get file creation property list
+   H5Fget_access_plist	- get file access property list
+   H5Fis_hdf5		- determine if a file is an hdf5 file
+   H5Fopen		- open an existing file
+   H5Freopen            - reopen an HDF5 file
+   H5Fmount             - mount a file
+   H5Funmount           - unmount a file
+   H5Fflush             - flush all buffers associated with a file to disk
+
+Groups
+   H5Gclose		- close a group and release resources
+   H5Gcreate    	- create a new group
+   H5Gopen		- open an existing group
+   H5Giterate   	- iterate over the contents of a group
+   H5Gmove		- change the name of some object
+   H5Glink		- create a hard or soft link to an object
+   H5Gunlink    	- break the link between a name and an object
+   H5Gget_objinfo	- get information about a group entry
+   H5Gget_linkval	- get the value of a soft link
+   H5Gget_comment	- get the comment string for an object
+   H5Gset_comment	- set the comment string for an object
+
+Dataspaces
+   H5Screate	        - create a new data space
+   H5Scopy		- copy a data space
+   H5Sclose		- release data space
+   H5Screate_simple	- create a new simple data space
+   H5Sset_space		- set simple data space extents
+   H5Sis_simple		- determine if data space is simple
+   H5Sset_extent_simple	- set simple data space dimensionality and size
+   H5Sget_simple_extent_npoints	- get number of points in simple extent
+   H5Sget_simple_extent_ndims - get simple data space dimensionality
+   H5Sget_simple_extent_dims - get simple data space size
+   H5Sget_simple_extent_type - get type of simple extent
+   H5Sset_extent_none	- reset extent to be empty
+   H5Sextent_copy	- copy the extent from one data space to another
+   H5Sget_select_npoints - get number of points selected for I/O
+   H5Sselect_hyperslab	- set hyperslab dataspace selection
+   H5Sselect_elements   - set element sequence dataspace selection
+   H5Sselect_all	- select entire extent for I/O
+   H5Sselect_none	- deselect all elements of extent
+   H5Soffset_simple	- set selection offset
+   H5Sselect_valid	- determine if selection is valid for extent
+ + H5Sget_select_hyper_nblocks   - get number of hyperslab blocks
+ + H5Sget_select_hyper_blocklist - get the list of hyperslab blocks 
+                                   currently selected
+ + H5Sget_select_elem_npoints    - get the number of element points 
+                                   in the current selection
+ + H5Sget_select_elem_pointlist  - get the list of element points 
+                                   currently selected
+ + H5Sget_select_bounds          - gets the bounding box containing 
+                                   the current selection
+
+Datatypes
+   H5Tclose		- release data type resources
+   H5Topen		- open a named data type
+   H5Tcommit		- name a data type
+   H5Tcommitted		- determine if a type is named
+   H5Tcopy		- copy a data type
+   H5Tcreate		- create a new data type
+   H5Tequal		- compare two data types
+   H5Tlock		- lock type to prevent changes
+   H5Tfind		- find a data type conversion function
+   H5Tconvert		- convert data from one type to another
+   H5Tregister    	- register a conversion function
+   H5Tunregister	- remove a conversion function
+   H5Tget_overflow	- get function that handles overflow conv. cases
+   H5Tset_overflow	- set function to handle overflow conversion cases
+   H5Tget_class		- get data type class
+   H5Tget_cset		- get character set
+   H5Tget_ebias		- get exponent bias
+   H5Tget_fields	- get floating point fields
+   H5Tget_inpad		- get inter-field padding
+   H5Tget_member_dims	- get struct member dimensions
+   H5Tget_member_name	- get struct member name
+   H5Tget_member_offset	- get struct member byte offset
+   H5Tget_member_type	- get struct member type
+   H5Tget_nmembers	- get number of struct members
+   H5Tget_norm		- get floating point normalization
+   H5Tget_offset	- get bit offset within type
+   H5Tget_order		- get byte order
+   H5Tget_pad		- get padding type
+   H5Tget_precision	- get precision in bits
+   H5Tget_sign		- get integer sign type
+   H5Tget_size		- get size in bytes
+   H5Tget_strpad	- get string padding
+   H5Tinsert		- insert scalar struct member
+   H5Tinsert_array	- insert array struct member
+   H5Tpack		- pack struct members
+   H5Tset_cset		- set character set
+   H5Tset_ebias		- set exponent bias
+   H5Tset_fields	- set floating point fields
+   H5Tset_inpad		- set inter-field padding
+   H5Tset_norm		- set floating point normalization
+   H5Tset_offset	- set bit offset within type
+   H5Tset_order		- set byte order
+   H5Tset_pad		- set padding type
+   H5Tset_precision	- set precision in bits
+   H5Tset_sign		- set integer sign type
+   H5Tset_size		- set size in bytes
+   H5Tset_strpad	- set string padding
+ + H5Tget_super         - return the base datatype from which a 
+                          datatype is derived
+ + H5Tvlen_create       - creates a new variable-length dataype
+ + H5Tenum_create       - creates a new enumeration datatype
+ + H5Tenum_insert       - inserts a new enumeration datatype member
+ + H5Tenum_nameof       - returns the symbol name corresponding to a 
+                          specified member of an enumeration datatype
+ + H5Tvalueof           - return the value corresponding to a 
+                          specified member of an enumeration datatype 
+ + H5Tget_member_value  - return the value of an enumeration datatype member
+ + H5Tset_tag           - tags an opaque datatype
+ + H5Tget_tag           - gets the tag associated with an opaque datatype
+
+ - H5Tregister_hard	- register specific type conversion function
+ - H5Tregister_soft	- register general type conversion function
+
+Filters
+   H5Tregister		- register a conversion function 
+
+Compression
+   H5Zregister		- register new compression and uncompression 
+                          functions for a method specified by a method number
+
+Identifiers
+ + H5Iget_type          - retrieve the type of an object
+
+References
+ + H5Rcreate            - creates a reference
+ + H5Rdereference       - open the HDF5 object referenced
+ + H5Rget_region        - retrieve a dataspace with the specified region selected
+ + H5Rget_object_type   - retrieve the type of object that an 
+                          object reference points to
+
+Ragged Arrays (alpha)
+   H5RAcreate		- create a new ragged array
+   H5RAopen		- open an existing array
+   H5RAclose		- close a ragged array
+   H5RAwrite		- write to an array
+   H5RAread		- read from an array
+
+
diff --git a/doc/html/ADGuide/RELEASE.txt b/doc/html/ADGuide/RELEASE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..59d0aab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/html/ADGuide/RELEASE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,435 @@
+
+ 
+                       HDF5 Release 1.4-Beta3
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+This document describes the differences between HDF5-1.2.0 and
+HDF5-1.4-Beta3, and contains information on the platforms tested and
+known problems in HDF5-1.4-Beta3. For more details check the HISTORY 
+file in the HDF5 source.
+
+The HDF5 documentation can be found on the NCSA ftp server
+(ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) in the directory:
+
+     /HDF/HDF5/docs/
+
+For more information look at the HDF5 home page at:
+   
+    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/
+
+If you have any questions or comments, please send them to:
+
+    hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+- New Features
+- h4toh5 Utility 
+- F90 Support
+- C++ Support
+- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.2.0 
+- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0-beta2
+- Platforms Tested
+- Known Problems
+
+New Features
+============
+   * The Virtual File Layer, VFL, was added to replace the old file
+     drivers. It also provides an API for user defined file drivers.
+   * New features added to snapshots. Use 'snapshot help' to see a
+     complete list of features.
+   * Improved configure to detect if MPIO routines are available when
+     parallel mode is requested.
+   * Added Thread-Safe support. Phase I implemented.
+   * Added data sieve buffering to raw data I/O path. This is enabled
+     for all VFL drivers except the mpio & core drivers. Setting the
+     sieve buffer size is controlled with the new API function,
+     H5Pset_sieve_buf_size(), and retrieved with H5Pget_sieve_buf_size().
+   * Added new Virtual File Driver, Stream VFD, to send/receive entire
+     HDF5 files via socket connections.
+   * As parts of VFL, HDF-GASS and HDF-SRB are also added to this
+     release. To find out details, please read INSTALL_VFL file. 
+   * Increased maximum number of dimensions for a dataset (H5S_MAX_RANK)
+     from 31 to 32 to align with HDF4 & netCDF.
+   * Added 'query' function to VFL drivers.  Also added 'type' parameter to
+     VFL 'read' & 'write' calls, so they are aware of the type of data
+     being accessed in the file.  Updated the VFL document also.
+   * A new h4toh5 uitlity, to convert HDF4 files to analogous HDF5 files.
+   * Added a new array datatype to the datatypes which can be created.  Removed
+     "array fields" from compound datatypes (use an array datatype instead).
+   * Parallel HDF5 works correctly with mpich-1.2.1 on Solaris, SGI, Linux.
+
+h4toh5 Utility 
+==============
+
+    The h4toh5 utility is a new utility that converts an HDF4 file to an 
+    HDF5 file.  For details, see the document, "Mapping HDF4 Objects to 
+    HDF5 Objects":
+       http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/papers/H4-H5MappingGuidelines.pdf
+
+    Known Limitations of the h4toh5 beta release
+    ---------------------------------------------
+
+    1. Error Handling
+
+    Error reporting is minimal.
+
+    2. String Datatype
+
+    HDF4 has no 'string' type. String valued data are usually defined as
+    an array of 'char' in HDF4. The h4toh5 utility will generally map
+    these to HDF5 'String' types rather than array of char, with the
+    following additional rules:
+
+       * For the data of an HDF4 SDS, image, and palette, if the data is
+	 declared 'DFNT_CHAR8' it will be assumed to be integer and
+	 will be an H5T_INTEGER type.
+       * For attributes of any HDF4 object, data of type 'DFNT_CHAR8'
+	 will be converted to an HDF5 'H5T_STRING' type.
+       * For an HDF4 Vdata, it is difficult to determine whether data 
+	 of type 'DFNT_CHAR8' is intended to be bytes or characters.
+	 The h4toh5 utility will consider them to be C characters, and
+	 will convert them to an HDF5 'H5T_STRING' type.
+
+
+    3. Compression, Chunking and External Storage
+
+    Chunking is supported, but compression and external storage is not.
+
+    An HDF4 object that uses chunking will be converted to an HDF5 file
+    with analogous chunked storage.
+
+    An HDF4 object that uses compression will be converted to an
+    uncompressed HDF5 object.  
+
+    An HDF4 object that uses external storage will be converted to an
+    HDF5 object without external storage.  
+
+    4. Memory Use
+
+    The beta version of the h4toh5 utility copies data from HDF4 objects
+    in a single read followed by a single write to the HDF5 object. For
+    large objects, this requires a very large amount of memory, which may
+    be extremely slow or fail on some platforms.
+
+    Note that a dataset that has only been partly written will
+    be read completely, including uninitialized data, and all the
+    data will be written to the HDF5 object.
+
+    5. Platforms
+
+    The h4toh5 utility requires HDF5.1.4 and HDF4r1.4
+
+    The beta h4toh5 utility has been tested on Solaris 2.6, Solaris 2.5,
+    Irix 6.5, HPUX 11.0, DEC Unix, FreeBSD, Windows 2000(NT5.0),Windows NT 
+    and Windows 98.
+
+F90 Support
+===========
+ 
+    This is the first release of the HDF5 Library with fully integrated 
+    F90 API support.  The Fortran Library is created when the 
+    --enable-fortran flag is specified during configuration.
+
+    Not all F90 subroutines are implemented. Please refer to the HDF5 
+    Reference Manual for more details.
+   
+    F90 APIs are available for the Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, Linux, DEC UNIX, 
+    T3E, J90 and O2K (64 bit option only) platforms. The Parallel version of 
+    the HDF5 F90 Library is supported on the O2K and T3E platforms.
+
+    Changes since the last prototype release (July 2000)
+    ----------------------------------------------------
+
+       * h5open_f and h5close_f must be called instead of h5init_types and 
+         h5close_types.
+
+       * The following subroutines are no longer available: 
+             h5pset_xfer_f
+             h5pget_xfer_f
+             h5pset_mpi_f
+             h5pget_mpi_f
+             h5pset_stdio_f
+             h5pget_stdio_f
+             h5pset_sec2_f
+             h5pget_sec2_f
+             h5pset_core_f
+             h5pget_core_f
+             h5pset_family_f
+             h5pget_family_f
+             
+       * The following functions have been added:
+             h5pset_fapl_mpio_f
+             h5pget_fapl_mpio_f
+             h5pset_dxpl_mpio_f
+             h5pget_dxpl_mpio_f
+        
+       * In the previous HDF5 F90 releases, the implementation of object 
+         references and dataset region references was not portable. This 
+         release introduces a portable implementation, but it also introduces 
+         changes to the read/write APIs that handle references.  If object or 
+         dataset region references are written or read to/from an HDF5 file, 
+         h5dwrite_f and h5dread_f must use the extra parameter, n, for the 
+         buffer size:
+
+            h5dwrite(read)_f(dset_id, mem_type_id, buf, n, hdferr, &
+                                                       ^^^ 
+                             mem_space_id, file_space_id, xfer_prp)
+
+         For other datatypes the APIs were not changed. 
+              
+             
+C++ Support
+===========
+
+        This is the first release of the HDF5 Library with fully integrated 
+        C++ API support. The HDF5 C++ library is built when the --enable-cxx
+        flag is specified during configuration.
+
+        Check the HDF5 Reference Manual for available C++ documentation.
+
+        C++ APIs are available for Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, Linux, and FreeBSD. 
+ 
+
+Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.2.0
+==========================
+
+Library
+-------
+
+   * The function H5Pset_mpi is renamed as H5Pset_fapl_mpio.
+   * Corrected a floating point number conversion error for the Cray J90
+     platform. The error did not convert the value 0.0 correctly.
+   * Error was fixed which was not allowing dataset region references to
+     have their regions retrieved correctly.
+   * Corrected a bug that caused non-parallel file drivers to fail in
+     the parallel version.
+   * Added internal free-lists to reduce memory required by the library
+     and H5garbage_collect API function
+   * Fixed error in H5Giterate which was not updating the "index"
+     parameter correctly.
+   * Fixed error in hyperslab iteration which was not walking through the
+     correct sequence of array elements if hyperslabs were staggered in a
+     certain pattern
+   * Fixed several other problems in hyperslab iteration code.
+   * Fixed another H5Giterate bug which was causes groups with large
+     numbers of objects in them to misbehave when the callback function
+     returned non-zero values.
+   * Changed return type of H5Aiterate and H5A_operator_t typedef to be
+     herr_t, to align them with the dataset and group iterator functions.
+   * Changed H5Screate_simple and H5Sset_extent_simple to not allow
+     dimensions of size 0 with out the same dimension being unlimited.
+   * QAK - 4/19/00 - Improved metadata hashing & caching algorithms to
+     avoid many hash flushes and also remove some redundant I/O when
+     moving metadata blocks in the file.
+   * The "struct(opt)" type conversion function which gets invoked for
+     certain compound datatype conversions was fixed for nested compound
+     types. This required a small change in the datatype conversion
+     function API.
+   * Re-wrote lots of the hyperslab code to speed it up quite a bit.
+   * Added bounded garbage collection for the free lists when they run
+     out of memory and also added H5set_free_list_limits API call to
+     allow users to put an upper limit on the amount of memory used for
+     free lists.
+   * Checked for non-existent or deleted objects when dereferencing one
+     with object or region references and disallow dereference.
+   * "Time" datatypes (H5T_UNIX_D*) were not being stored and retrieved
+     from object headers correctly, fixed now.
+   * Fixed H5Dread or H5Dwrite calls with H5FD_MPIO_COLLECTIVE requests
+     that may hang because not all processes are transfer the same amount
+     of data. (A.K.A. prematured collective return when zero amount data
+     requested.) Collective calls that may cause hanging is done via the
+     corresponding MPI-IO independent calls.
+   * If configure with --enable-debug=all, couple functions would issue
+     warning messages to "stderr" that the operation is expensive time-wise.
+     This messed up applications (like testings) that did not expect the
+     extra output. It is changed so that the warning will be printed only
+     if the corresponding Debug key is set.
+
+Configuration
+-------------
+
+   * The hdf5.h include file was fixed to allow the HDF5 Library to be
+     compiled with other libraries/applications that use GNU autoconf. 
+   * Configuration for parallel HDF5 was improved. Configure now attempts
+     to link with libmpi.a and/or libmpio.a as the MPI libraries by
+     default. It also uses "mpirun" to launch MPI tests by default. It
+     tests to link MPIO routines during the configuration stage, rather
+     than failing later as before. One can just do "./configure
+     --enable-parallel" if the MPI library is in the system library.
+   * Added support for pthread library and thread-safe option.
+   * The libhdf5.settings file shows the correct machine byte-sex.
+   * Added option "--enable-stream-vfd" to configure w/o the Stream VFD.
+     For Solaris, added -lsocket to the LIBS list of libraries.
+
+Tools
+-----
+    * h5dump now accepts both short and long command-line parameters:
+          -h, --help          Print a usage message and exit
+          -B, --bootblock     Print the content of the boot block
+          -H, --header        Print the header only; no data is displayed
+          -i, --object-ids    Print the object ids
+          -V, --version       Print version number and exit
+          -a P, --attribute=P Print the specified attribute
+          -d P, --dataset=P   Print the specified dataset
+          -g P, --group=P     Print the specified group and all members
+          -l P, --soft-link=P Print the value(s) of the specified soft link
+          -o F, --output=F    Output raw data into file F
+          -t T, --datatype=T  Print the specified named data type
+          -w #, --width=#     Set the number of columns
+
+      P - is the full path from the root group to the object.
+      T - is the name of the data type.
+      F - is a filename.
+      # - is an integer greater than 1.
+    * A change from the old way command line parameters were interpreted
+      is that multiple attributes, datasets, groups, soft-links, and
+      object-ids cannot be specified with just one flag but you have to
+      use a flag with each object. I.e., instead of doing this:
+
+        h5dump -a /attr1 /attr2 foo.h5
+
+      do this:
+
+        h5dump -a /attr1 -a /attr2 foo.h5
+
+      The cases are similar for the other object types.
+    * h5dump correctly displays compound datatypes.
+    * Corrected an error in h5toh4 which did not convert the 32bits
+      int from HDF5 to HDF4 corectly for the T3E platform.
+    * h5dump correctly displays the committed copy of predefined types
+      correctly.
+    * Added an option, -V, to show the version information of h5dump.
+    * Fixed a core dumping bug of h5toh4 when executed on platforms like 
+      TFLOPS.
+    * The test script for h5toh4 used to not able to detect the hdp
+      dumper command was not valid.  It now detects and reports the
+      failure of hdp execution.
+    * Merged the tools with the 1.2.2 branch. Required adding new
+      macros, VERSION12 and VERSION13, used in conditional compilation.
+      Updated the Windows project files for the tools.            
+    * h5dump displays opaque and bitfield data correctly.
+    * h5dump and h5ls can browse files created with the Stream VFD
+      (eg. "h5ls <hostname>:<port>").
+    * h5dump has a new feature "-o <filename>" which outputs the raw data
+      of the dataset into ascii text file <filename>.
+    * h5toh4 used to converts hdf5 strings type to hdf4 DFNT_INT8 type.
+      Corrected to produce hdf4 DFNT_CHAR type instead.
+    * h5dump and h5ls displays array data correctly.
+
+Documentation
+-------------
+
+    * User's Guide and Reference Manual were updated. 
+      See doc/html/PSandPDF/index.html for more details. 
+
+   
+Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0-beta2
+================================
+
+    * Corrected configuration error which was not including compression support
+        correctly.
+    * Cleaned up lots of warnings.
+    * Changed a few h5dump command line switches and added long versions of
+        the switches.
+    * Changed parameters for H5Tconvert, H5Pset_bufer and H5Pget_buffer from
+        size_t to hsize_t
+    * Fixed fairly obscure bug in hyperslab I/O which could (in rare cases)
+        not copy all the data during a transfer.
+    * Removed ragged array code from library.
+    * F90 library and module files are installed properly now on all supported platforms.
+
+Platforms Tested
+================
+
+ Note: Due to the nature of the bug fixes, only static versions of the
+       library and tools were tested.
+
+
+  AIX 4.3.2 (IBM SP)            mpcc_r 3.6.6
+  Cray T3E sn6711 2.0.5.43      Cray Standard C Version 6.4.0.0
+                                Cray Fortran Version 3.4.0.2
+  FreeBSD 4.2                   gcc 2.95.2
+                                g++ 2.95.2
+  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32.30
+  HP-UX B.11.00                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.11.00.13
+  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30
+  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
+                                mpt.1.4.0.2
+                                mpich-1.2.1
+  Linux 2.2.16-3smp             gcc-2.95.2
+                                g++ 2.95.2
+                                pgf90 3.1-3
+  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
+                                Digital Fortran 90 V4.1-270
+  SunOS 5.6                     WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0 
+  (Solaris 2.6)                 WorkShop Compilers 5.0 99/10/25 Fortran 90
+                                       2.0 Patch 107356-04
+                                Workshop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C++ 5.0
+  SunOS 5.7                     WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0
+  (Solaris 2.7)                 WorkShop Compilers 5.0 99/10/25 Fortran 90
+                                       2.0 Patch 107356-04
+                                Workshop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C++ 5.0
+  TFLOPS 3.3                    mpich-1.2.0 with local changes
+  Windows NT4.0, 2000 (NT5.0)   MSVC++ 6.0
+  Windows 98                    MSVC++ 6.0
+
+Known Problems
+==============
+
+* The --enable-static-exec configure flag fails to compile for Solaris
+  platforms. This is due to the fact that not all of the system
+  libraries on Solaris are available in a static format.
+
+  The --enable-static-exec configure flag also fails to correctly compile
+  on Linux platforms using the gcc-2.95.2 compiler.
+  
+  It is suggested that you don't use this option on these platforms
+  during configuration.
+
+* With the gcc 2.95.2 compiler, HDF 5 uses the `-ansi' flag during
+  compilation. The ANSI version of the compiler complains about not being
+  able to handle the `long long' datatype with the warning:
+
+        warning: ANSI C does not support `long long'
+  
+  This warning is innocuous and can be safely ignored.
+
+* SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2:  Hyperslab selections will 
+  fail if library is compiled using optimization of any level.
+
+* When building hdf5 tools and applications on windows platform, a linking
+warning: defaultlib "LIBC" conflicts with use of other libs will appear
+on debug version when running VC++6.0. This warning doesn't affect building
+and testing hdf5 applications. We are investigating this now.
+* The Stream VFD was not tested yet under Windows.
+  It is not supported in the TFLOPS machine.
+
+* Shared library option is broken for IBM SP and some Origin 2000 platforms.
+  One needs to run ./configure with '--disable-shared'
+
+* The ./dsets tests failed in the TFLOPS machine if the test program,
+  dsets.c, is compiled with the -O option.  The hdf5 library still works
+  correctly with the -O option.  The test program works fine if it is
+  compiled with -O1 or -O0.  Only -O (same as -O2) causes the test
+  program to fail.
+
+* Certain platforms give false negatives when testing h5ls:
+    - Solaris x86 2.5.1, Cray T3E and Cray J90 give errors during testing
+        when displaying object references in certain files.  These are benign 
+        differences due to the difference in sizes of the objects created on
+        those platforms.  h5ls appears to be dumping object references
+        correctly.
+    - Cray J90 (and Cray T3E?) give errors during testing when displaying
+        some floating-point values.  These are benign differences due to the
+        different precision in the values displayed and h5ls appears to be
+        dumping floating-point numbers correctly.
+
+* Before building HDF5 F90 Library from source on Crays (T3E and J90) 
+  replace H5Aff.f90, H5Dff.f90 and H5Pff.f90 files in the fortran/src subdirectory 
+  in the top level directory with the Cray-specific files from the 
+  ftp://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/pub/ougoing/hdf5/hdf5-1.4.0-beta/F90_source_for_Crays
+  directory.