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+<html>
+ <head>
+ <title>Filters</title>
+ <h1>Filters in HDF5</h1>
+
+ <b>Note: Transient pipelines described in this document have not
+ been implemented.</b>
+
+ <h2>Introduction</h2>
+
+ <p>HDF5 allows chunked data to pass through user-defined filters
+ on the way to or from disk. The filters operate on chunks of an
+ <code>H5D_CHUNKED</code> dataset can be arranged in a pipeline
+ so output of one filter becomes the input of the next filter.
+
+ </p><p>Each filter has a two-byte identification number (type
+ <code>H5Z_filter_t</code>) allocated by The HDF Group and can also be
+ passed application-defined integer resources to control its
+ behavior. Each filter also has an optional ASCII comment
+ string.
+
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <th>Values for <code>H5Z_filter_t</code></th>
+ <th>Description</th>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td><code>0-255</code></td>
+ <td>These values are reserved for filters predefined and
+ registered by the HDF5 library and of use to the general
+ public. They are described in a separate section
+ below.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td><code>256-511</code></td>
+ <td>Filter numbers in this range are used for testing only
+ and can be used temporarily by any organization. No
+ attempt is made to resolve numbering conflicts since all
+ definitions are by nature temporary.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td><code>512-65535</code></td>
+ <td>Reserved for future assignment. Please contact the
+ <a href="mailto:help@hdfgroup.org">HDF5 development team</a>
+ to reserve a value or range of values for
+ use by your filters.</td>
+ </tr></tbody></table>
+
+ <h2>Defining and Querying the Filter Pipeline</h2>
+
+ <p>Two types of filters can be applied to raw data I/O: permanent
+ filters and transient filters. The permanent filter pipeline is
+ defined when the dataset is created while the transient pipeline
+ is defined for each I/O operation. During an
+ <code>H5Dwrite()</code> the transient filters are applied first
+ in the order defined and then the permanent filters are applied
+ in the order defined. For an <code>H5Dread()</code> the
+ opposite order is used: permanent filters in reverse order, then
+ transient filters in reverse order. An <code>H5Dread()</code>
+ must result in the same amount of data for a chunk as the
+ original <code>H5Dwrite()</code>.
+
+ </p><p>The permanent filter pipeline is defined by calling
+ <code>H5Pset_filter()</code> for a dataset creation property
+ list while the transient filter pipeline is defined by calling
+ that function for a dataset transfer property list.
+
+ </p><dl>
+ <dt><code>herr_t H5Pset_filter (hid_t <em>plist</em>,
+ H5Z_filter_t <em>filter</em>, unsigned int <em>flags</em>,
+ size_t <em>cd_nelmts</em>, const unsigned int
+ <em>cd_values</em>[])</code>
+ </dt><dd>This function adds the specified <em>filter</em> and
+ corresponding properties to the end of the transient or
+ permanent output filter pipeline (depending on whether
+ <em>plist</em> is a dataset creation or dataset transfer
+ property list). The <em>flags</em> argument specifies certain
+ general properties of the filter and is documented below. The
+ <em>cd_values</em> is an array of <em>cd_nelmts</em> integers
+ which are auxiliary data for the filter. The integer values
+ will be stored in the dataset object header as part of the
+ filter information.
+ </dd><dt><code>int H5Pget_nfilters (hid_t <em>plist</em>)</code>
+ </dt><dd>This function returns the number of filters defined in the
+ permanent or transient filter pipeline depending on whether
+ <em>plist</em> is a dataset creation or dataset transfer
+ property list. In each pipeline the filters are numbered from
+ 0 through <em>N</em>-1 where <em>N</em> is the value returned
+ by this function. During output to the file the filters of a
+ pipeline are applied in increasing order (the inverse is true
+ for input). Zero is returned if there are no filters in the
+ pipeline and a negative value is returned for errors.
+ </dd><dt><code>H5Z_filter_t H5Pget_filter (hid_t <em>plist</em>,
+ int <em>filter_number</em>, unsigned int *<em>flags</em>,
+ size_t *<em>cd_nelmts</em>, unsigned int
+ *<em>cd_values</em>, size_t namelen, char name[])</code>
+ </dt><dd>This is the query counterpart of
+ <code>H5Pset_filter()</code> and returns information about a
+ particular filter number in a permanent or transient pipeline
+ depending on whether <em>plist</em> is a dataset creation or
+ dataset transfer property list. On input, <em>cd_nelmts</em>
+ indicates the number of entries in the <em>cd_values</em>
+ array allocated by the caller while on exit it contains the
+ number of values defined by the filter. The
+ <em>filter_number</em> should be a value between zero and
+ <em>N</em>-1 as described for <code>H5Pget_nfilters()</code>
+ and the function will return failure (a negative value) if the
+ filter number is out of range. If <em>name</em> is a pointer
+ to an array of at least <em>namelen</em> bytes then the filter
+ name will be copied into that array. The name will be null
+ terminated if the <em>namelen</em> is large enough. The
+ filter name returned will be the name appearing in the file or
+ else the name registered for the filter or else an empty string.
+ </dd></dl>
+
+ <p>The flags argument to the functions above is a bit vector of
+ the following fields:
+
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <th>Values for <em>flags</em></th>
+ <th>Description</th>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td><code>H5Z_FLAG_OPTIONAL</code></td>
+ <td>If this bit is set then the filter is optional. If
+ the filter fails (see below) during an
+ <code>H5Dwrite()</code> operation then the filter is
+ just excluded from the pipeline for the chunk for which
+ it failed; the filter will not participate in the
+ pipeline during an <code>H5Dread()</code> of the chunk.
+ This is commonly used for compression filters: if the
+ compression result would be larger than the input then
+ the compression filter returns failure and the
+ uncompressed data is stored in the file. If this bit is
+ clear and a filter fails then the
+ <code>H5Dwrite()</code> or <code>H5Dread()</code> also
+ fails.</td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody></table>
+
+ <h2>Defining Filters</h2>
+
+ <p>Each filter is bidirectional, handling both input and output to
+ the file, and a flag is passed to the filter to indicate the
+ direction. In either case the filter reads a chunk of data from
+ a buffer, usually performs some sort of transformation on the
+ data, places the result in the same or new buffer, and returns
+ the buffer pointer and size to the caller. If something goes
+ wrong the filter should return zero to indicate a failure.
+
+ </p><p>During output, a filter that fails or isn't defined and is
+ marked as optional is silently excluded from the pipeline and
+ will not be used when reading that chunk of data. A required
+ filter that fails or isn't defined causes the entire output
+ operation to fail. During input, any filter that has not been
+ excluded from the pipeline during output and fails or is not
+ defined will cause the entire input operation to fail.
+
+ </p><p>Filters are defined in two phases. The first phase is to
+ define a function to act as the filter and link the function
+ into the application. The second phase is to register the
+ function, associating the function with an
+ <code>H5Z_filter_t</code> identification number and a comment.
+
+ </p><dl>
+ <dt><code>typedef size_t (*H5Z_func_t)(unsigned int
+ <em>flags</em>, size_t <em>cd_nelmts</em>, const unsigned int
+ <em>cd_values</em>[], size_t <em>nbytes</em>, size_t
+ *<em>buf_size</em>, void **<em>buf</em>)</code>
+ </dt><dd>The <em>flags</em>, <em>cd_nelmts</em>, and
+ <em>cd_values</em> are the same as for the
+ <code>H5Pset_filter()</code> function with the additional flag
+ <code>H5Z_FLAG_REVERSE</code> which is set when the filter is
+ called as part of the input pipeline. The input buffer is
+ pointed to by <em>*buf</em> and has a total size of
+ <em>*buf_size</em> bytes but only <em>nbytes</em> are valid
+ data. The filter should perform the transformation in place if
+ possible and return the number of valid bytes or zero for
+ failure. If the transformation cannot be done in place then
+ the filter should allocate a new buffer with
+ <code>malloc()</code> and assign it to <em>*buf</em>,
+ assigning the allocated size of that buffer to
+ <em>*buf_size</em>. The old buffer should be freed
+ by calling <code>free()</code>.
+
+ <br><br>
+ </dd><dt><code>herr_t H5Zregister (H5Z_filter_t <em>filter_id</em>,
+ const char *<em>comment</em>, H5Z_func_t
+ <em>filter</em>)</code>
+ </dt><dd>The <em>filter</em> function is associated with a filter
+ number and a short ASCII comment which will be stored in the
+ hdf5 file if the filter is used as part of a permanent
+ pipeline during dataset creation.
+ </dd></dl>
+
+ <h2>Predefined Filters</h2>
+
+ <p>If <code>zlib</code> version 1.1.2 or later was found
+ during configuration then the library will define a filter whose
+ <code>H5Z_filter_t</code> number is
+ <code>H5Z_FILTER_DEFLATE</code>. Since this compression method
+ has the potential for generating compressed data which is larger
+ than the original, the <code>H5Z_FLAG_OPTIONAL</code> flag
+ should be turned on so such cases can be handled gracefully by
+ storing the original data instead of the compressed data. The
+ <em>cd_nvalues</em> should be one with <em>cd_value[0]</em>
+ being a compression aggression level between zero and nine,
+ inclusive (zero is the fastest compression while nine results in
+ the best compression ratio).
+
+ </p><p>A convenience function for adding the
+ <code>H5Z_FILTER_DEFLATE</code> filter to a pipeline is:
+
+ </p><dl>
+ <dt><code>herr_t H5Pset_deflate (hid_t <em>plist</em>, unsigned
+ <em>aggression</em>)</code>
+ </dt><dd>The deflate compression method is added to the end of the
+ permanent or transient filter pipeline depending on whether
+ <em>plist</em> is a dataset creation or dataset transfer
+ property list. The <em>aggression</em> is a number between
+ zero and nine (inclusive) to indicate the tradeoff between
+ speed and compression ratio (zero is fastest, nine is best
+ ratio).
+ </dd></dl>
+
+ <p>Even if the <code>zlib</code> isn't detected during
+ configuration the application can define
+ <code>H5Z_FILTER_DEFLATE</code> as a permanent filter. If the
+ filter is marked as optional (as with
+ <code>H5Pset_deflate()</code>) then it will always fail and be
+ automatically removed from the pipeline. Applications that read
+ data will fail only if the data is actually compressed; they
+ won't fail if <code>H5Z_FILTER_DEFLATE</code> was part of the
+ permanent output pipeline but was automatically excluded because
+ it didn't exist when the data was written.
+
+ </p><p><code>zlib</code> can be acquired from
+ <code><a href="http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib/">
+ http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib/</a></code>.
+
+ </p><h2>Example</h2>
+
+ <p>This example shows how to define and register a simple filter
+ that adds a checksum capability to the data stream.
+
+ </p><p>The function that acts as the filter always returns zero
+ (failure) if the <code>md5()</code> function was not detected at
+ configuration time (left as an exercise for the reader).
+ Otherwise the function is broken down to an input and output
+ half. The output half calculates a checksum, increases the size
+ of the output buffer if necessary, and appends the checksum to
+ the end of the buffer. The input half calculates the checksum
+ on the first part of the buffer and compares it to the checksum
+ already stored at the end of the buffer. If the two differ then
+ zero (failure) is returned, otherwise the buffer size is reduced
+ to exclude the checksum.
+
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <td>
+ <p><code></code></p><pre><code>
+ size_t
+ md5_filter(unsigned int flags, size_t cd_nelmts,
+ const unsigned int cd_values[], size_t nbytes,
+ size_t *buf_size, void **buf)
+ {
+ #ifdef HAVE_MD5
+ unsigned char cksum[16];
+
+ if (flags &amp; H5Z_REVERSE) {
+ /* Input */
+ assert(nbytes&gt;=16);
+ md5(nbytes-16, *buf, cksum);
+
+ /* Compare */
+ if (memcmp(cksum, (char*)(*buf)+nbytes-16, 16)) {
+ return 0; /*fail*/
+ }
+
+ /* Strip off checksum */
+ return nbytes-16;
+
+ } else {
+ /* Output */
+ md5(nbytes, *buf, cksum);
+
+ /* Increase buffer size if necessary */
+ if (nbytes+16&gt;*buf_size) {
+ *buf_size = nbytes + 16;
+ *buf = realloc(*buf, *buf_size);
+ }
+
+ /* Append checksum */
+ memcpy((char*)(*buf)+nbytes, cksum, 16);
+ return nbytes+16;
+ }
+ #else
+ return 0; /*fail*/
+ #endif
+ }
+ </code></pre>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody></table>
+
+ <p>Once the filter function is defined it must be registered so
+ the HDF5 library knows about it. Since we're testing this
+ filter we choose one of the <code>H5Z_filter_t</code> numbers
+ from the reserved range. We'll randomly choose 305.
+
+ </p><p>
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <td>
+ <p><code></code></p><pre><code>
+ #define FILTER_MD5 305
+ herr_t status = H5Zregister(FILTER_MD5, "md5 checksum", md5_filter);
+ </code></pre>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody></table>
+
+ <p>Now we can use the filter in a pipeline. We could have added
+ the filter to the pipeline before defining or registering the
+ filter as long as the filter was defined and registered by time
+ we tried to use it (if the filter is marked as optional then we
+ could have used it without defining it and the library would
+ have automatically removed it from the pipeline for each chunk
+ written before the filter was defined and registered).
+
+ </p><p>
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <td>
+ <p><code></code></p><pre><code>
+ hid_t dcpl = H5Pcreate(H5P_DATASET_CREATE);
+ hsize_t chunk_size[3] = {10,10,10};
+ H5Pset_chunk(dcpl, 3, chunk_size);
+ H5Pset_filter(dcpl, FILTER_MD5, 0, 0, NULL);
+ hid_t dset = H5Dcreate(file, "dset", H5T_NATIVE_DOUBLE, space, dcpl);
+ </code></pre>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody></table>
+
+ <h2>6. Filter Diagnostics</h2>
+
+ <p>If the library is compiled with debugging turned on for the H5Z
+ layer (usually as a result of <code>configure
+ --enable-debug=z</code>) then filter statistics are printed when
+ the application exits normally or the library is closed. The
+ statistics are written to the standard error stream and include
+ two lines for each filter that was used: one for input and one
+ for output. The following fields are displayed:
+
+ </p><p>
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <th>Field Name</th>
+ <th>Description</th>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td>Method</td>
+ <td>This is the name of the method as defined with
+ <code>H5Zregister()</code> with the characters
+ "&lt; or "&gt;" prepended to indicate
+ input or output.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td>Total</td>
+ <td>The total number of bytes processed by the filter
+ including errors. This is the maximum of the
+ <em>nbytes</em> argument or the return value.
+ </td></tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td>Errors</td>
+ <td>This field shows the number of bytes of the Total
+ column which can be attributed to errors.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td>User, System, Elapsed</td>
+ <td>These are the amount of user time, system time, and
+ elapsed time in seconds spent in the filter function.
+ Elapsed time is sensitive to system load. These times
+ may be zero on operating systems that don't support the
+ required operations.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr valign="top">
+ <td>Bandwidth</td>
+ <td>This is the filter bandwidth which is the total
+ number of bytes processed divided by elapsed time.
+ Since elapsed time is subject to system load the
+ bandwidth numbers cannot always be trusted.
+ Furthermore, the bandwidth includes bytes attributed to
+ errors which may significanly taint the value if the
+ function is able to detect errors without much
+ expense.</td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody></table>
+
+ <p>
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <caption align="bottom">
+ <b>Example: Filter Statistics</b>
+ </caption>
+ <tbody><tr>
+ <td>
+ <p><code></code></p><pre><code>H5Z: filter statistics accumulated ov=
+ er life of library:
+ Method Total Errors User System Elapsed Bandwidth
+ ------ ----- ------ ---- ------ ------- ---------
+ &gt;deflate 160000 40000 0.62 0.74 1.33 117.5 kBs
+ &lt;deflate 120000 0 0.11 0.00 0.12 1.000 MBs
+ </code></pre>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody></table>
+
+ <hr>
+
+
+ <p><a name="fn1">Footnote 1:</a> Dataset chunks can be compressed
+ through the use of filters. Developers should be aware that
+ reading and rewriting compressed chunked data can result in holes
+ in an HDF5 file. In time, enough such holes can increase the
+ file size enough to impair application or library performance
+ when working with that file. See
+ <a href="https://support.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc1.6/Performance.html#Freespace">
+ Freespace Management</a>
+ in the chapter
+ <a href="https://support.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc1.6/Performance.html">
+ Performance Analysis and Issues</a>.</p>
+</html>