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Follow these simple rules and stay out of trouble:
\li \Bold{Handle discipline:} The HDF5 C-API is rife with handles or
identifiers, which you typically obtain by creating new HDF5 items, copying
items, or retrieving facets of items. \Emph{You acquire a handle, you own it!}
(Colin Powell) In other words, you are responsible for releasing the underlying
resources via the matching \Code{H5*close()} call, or deal with the consequences
of resource leakage.
\li \Bold{Closed means closed:} Do not pass identifiers that were previously
\Code{H5*close()}-d to other API functions! It will generate an error.
\li \Bold{Dynamic memory allocation:} The API contains a few functions in which the
HDF5 library dynamically allocates memory on the caller's behalf. The caller owns
this memory and eventually must free it by calling H5free_memory(). (\Bold{Not}
the `free` function \Emph{du jour}!)
\li \Bold{Be careful with that saw:} Do not modify the underlying collection when an
iteration is in progress!
\li \Bold{Use of locations:} Certain API functions, typically called \Code{H5***_by_name}
use a combination of identifiers and path names to refer to HDF5 objects.
If the identifier fully specifies the object in question, pass \Code{'.'} (a dot)
for the name!
Break a leg!
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