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diff --git a/RELEASE.txt b/RELEASE.txt index 6efbdb0..f8938a8 100644 --- a/RELEASE.txt +++ b/RELEASE.txt @@ -1,13 +1,13 @@ - HDF5 Release 1.4-Beta3 + HDF5 Release 1.5-snap0 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.txt +This document describes the differences between HDF5-1.4.0 and +HDF5-1.5-snap0, and contains information on the platforms tested and +known problems in HDF5-1.5-snap0. For more details check the HISTORY.txt file in the HDF5 source. The HDF5 documentation can be found on the NCSA ftp server @@ -23,353 +23,41 @@ 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 +- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0 - 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. See: - - http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/papers/mthdf/MTHDFpaper.htm - - for more details. - * 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. - * You can now install the HDF5 documentation using the - ``make install-doc'' command. The documentation is installed in the - $(prefix)/doc directory where $(prefix) is the prefix specified by - the (optional) ``--prefix'' flag during configuration. - -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 Bugs: - - The h4toh5 utility produces images that do not correctly conform - to the HDF5 Image and Palette Specification. - http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/doc/ImageSpec.html - Several required HDF5 attributes are omitted, and the dataspace - is reversed (i.e., the ht. and width of the image dataset is - incorrectly described.) For more information, please see: - http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/H5Image/ImageDetails.htm - - 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_STD_I8E under H5T_INTEGER class. - * For attributes of any HDF4 object, data of type 'DFNT_CHAR8' - will be converted to an HDF5 string under HDF5 'H5T_STRING' class. - * 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 string under HDF5 'H5T_STRING' class. - - - 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. +Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0 +========================== - 5. Platforms + Library + ------- + * Fixed bug with contiguous hyperslabs not being detected, causing + slower I/O than necessary. + * Fixed bug where non-aligned hyperslab I/O on chunked datasets was + causing errors during I/O - The h4toh5 utility requires HDF5.1.4 and HDF4r1.4 + Configuration + ------------- - 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. + Tools + ----- - 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. - + Documentation + ------------- -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. +New Features +============ - -Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0-beta2 -================================ - - * Fixed a bug in the conversion from a little endian double to a big endian float - in some special cases. - * 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 ================ - - AIX 4.3.3.0 (IBM SP powerpc) mpcc_r 3.6.6 Cray T3E sn6711 2.0.5.45 Cray Standard C Version 6.4.0.0 Cray Fortran Version 3.4.0.2 |