path: root/release_docs/RELEASE.txt

HDF5 version 1.8.10-snap13 currently under development
================================================================================

INTRODUCTION
============

This document describes the differences between HDF5-1.8.9 and 
HDF5 1.8.10-*, and contains information on the platforms tested and 
known problems in HDF5-1.8.10-*. 
For more details, see the files HISTORY-1_0-1_8_0_rc3.txt 
and HISTORY-1_8.txt in the release_docs/ directory of the HDF5 source.

Links to the HDF5 1.8.10 source code, documentation, and additional materials
can be found on the HDF5 web page at:

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/products/hdf5/

The HDF5 1.8.10 release can be obtained from:

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/release/obtain5.html

User documentation for 1.8.10 can be accessed directly at this location: 

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/

New features in the HDF5-1.8.x release series, including brief general 
descriptions of some new and modified APIs, are described in the "What's New 
in 1.8.0?" document:

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/WhatsNew180.html

All new and modified APIs are listed in detail in the "HDF5 Software Changes 
from Release to Release" document, in the section "Release 1.8.10 (current 
release) versus Release 1.8.9":

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/Changes.html

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to the HDF Help Desk:

     help@hdfgroup.org


CONTENTS
========

- New Features
- Support for New Platforms, Languages, and Compilers
- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.8.9
- Platforms Tested
- Supported Configuration Features Summary
- Known Problems


New Features
============

    Configuration
    -------------
    - None
    
    Library
    -------
    - Updated to latest autotools and changed all hard *.sh scripts to
      configure managed *.sh.in files. Removed overloading of autotools
      TESTS variable by examples and tests. Renamed configure.in to
      configure.ac. (ADB - 2012/08/23 - HDFFV-8129)
    - The data sieve buffer size was for all the datasets in the file.  It
      could waste memory if any dataset size is smaller than the sieve buffer
      size.  Now the library picks the smaller one between the dataset size
      and the sieve buffer size from the file access property. See Issue 7934.
      (SLU - 2012/4/11)
 
    Parallel Library
    ----------------
    - Add H5Pget_mpio_no_collective_cause() function that retrive reasons
      why the collective I/O was broken during read/write IO access. 
      (JKM - 2012/08/30 HDFFV-8143)
 
    Tools
    -----
    - None

    High-Level APIs
    ---------------
    - None

    Fortran API
    -----------
    - Fixed a typo in return value of the nh5dread_f_c function ( was 1 
      instead of 0 on success); fixed the return value to make it consistent
      with other Fortran functions; cleaned the code from debug statements.
      (EIP - 2012/06/23)

    C++ API
    -------
    - None


Support for New Platforms, Languages, and Compilers
===================================================
    - None

Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.8.9
==========================

    Configuration
    -------------
    - Fixed AIX Fortran compiler flags to use appropriate settings for
      debugging, profiling, optimization situations. HDFFV-8069. (AKC
      2012/09/27)

    Library
    -------
    - Fix a memory leak exposed when inserting/removing a property
    from a property list several times. HDFFV-8022. (MSC 2012/05/18)

    Parallel Library
    ----------------
    - The MPI-POSIX VFD was updated to include the POSIX and Windows
      correctness features added that had already been added to the other VFDs.
      HDFFV-8058/7845.  (DER 2012/09/17)

    Performance
    -------------
      - Retired program perform/mpi-perf. Its purpose has been incorporated
	into h5perf before. (AKC 2012/09/21)

    Tools
    -----
    - h5repack: "h5repack -f NONE file1.h5 out.h5" command failed if
      source file contains chunked dataset and a chunk dim is bigger than 
      the dataset dim. Another issue is that the command changed max dims
      if chunk dim is smaller than the dataset dim.
      These issue occurred when dataset size is smaller than 64k (compact
      size limit)  Fixed both.
      HDFFV-8012 (JKM 2012/09/24)
    - h5diff: Fixed not to accumulate attribute difference to dataset
      difference in verbose mode (-v, -r), which caused incorrect 
      difference between dataset and group/datatype object if attribute 
      exist with any differences. This also lead to fix inconsistent
      format indicating difference between dataset and group/datatype
      object. HDFFV-5919 (JKM 2012/09/10)
    - h5diff: Fixed the incorrect result when comparing attribute data 
      values and the data type has same class but different size.
      HDFFV-7942  (JKM 2012/08/15)
    - h5dump: Replace single element fwrite with block writes.
      HDFFV-1208 (ADB 2012/08/13)
    - h5diff: Fixed test failure for "make check" due to failure of 
      copying test files when performed in HDF5 source tree. Also applied
      to other tools.  HDFFV-8107 (JKM 2012/08/01)
    - ph5diff: Fixed intermittent hang issue on a certain operation in 
      parallel mode. It was detected by daily test for comparing 
      non-comparable objects, but it could have occurred in other 
      operations depend on machine condition.  HDFFV-8003 (JKM 2012/08/01)
    - h5diff: Fixed the Function COPY_TESTFILES_TO_TESTDIR() of testh5diff.sh
      to better report when there is an error in the file copying.
      HDFFV-8105 (AKC 2012/07/22)
    - h5import: Allow use of h5dump output as input files to h5import.
      HDFFV-721 (ADB 2012/07/19)
    - h5dump: Fix sort by name display to maintain correct parent / child
      releationships between ascending / descending order.
      HDFFV-8095 (ADB 2012/07/12)
    - h5dump: Fix display by creation order when using option -n (print contents).
      HDFFV-5942 (ADB 2012/07/09)
    - h5dump: Allow H5T_CSET_UTF8 to be displayed in h5dump output. Use 
      technique like in h5ls (matches library options).
      HDFFV-7999 (ADB 2012/05/23)
    - h5diff: Fixed not to check and display dangling link status without 
      --follow-symlinks option. This also improved performance when 
      comparing lots of external links without the --follow-symlinks
      option.  HDFFV-7998 (JKM 2012/04/26)

    F90 API
    -------
    - None

    C++ API
    ------
    - None

    High-Level APIs:
    ------
    - None

    Fortran High-Level APIs:
    ------
    - None

Platforms Tested
================
The following platforms and compilers have been tested for this release.

    AIX 5.3                       xlc 10.1.0.5
    (NASA G-ADA)                  xlC 10.1.0.5
                                  xlf90 12.1.0.6

    FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE i386       gcc 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
    (loyalty)                     g++ 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
                                  gcc 4.6.1 20110422
                                  g++ 4.6.1 20110422
                                  gfortran 4.6.1 20110422

    FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE amd64      gcc 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
    (freedom)                     g++ 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
                                  gcc 4.6.1 20110422
                                  g++ 4.6.1 20110422
                                  gfortran 4.6.1 20110422

    Linux 2.6.18-194.3.1.el5PAE   GNU C (gcc), Fortran (gfortran), C++ (g++)
    #1 SMP i686 i686 i386         compilers for 32-bit applications;
    (jam)                             Version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-52)
                                      Version 4.5.2
                                  PGI C, Fortran, C++ Compilers for 32-bit
                                  applications;
                                      Version 11.8-0
                                      Version 11.9-0
                                  Intel(R) C, C++, Fortran Compiler for 32-bit
                                  applications;
                                      Version 12.0
                                      Version 12.1
                                  MPICH mpich2-1.3.1 compiled with
                                      gcc 4.1.2 and gfortran 4.1.2

    Linux 2.6.18-308.1.1.el5      GNU C (gcc), Fortran (gfortran), C++ (g++)
    #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux       compilers for 32-bit applications;
    (koala)                           Version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-52)
                                      Version 4.5.2
                                  PGI C, Fortran, C++ for 64-bit target on 
                                  x86-64;
                                      Version 11.9-0 (64-bit)
                                      Version 11.8-0 (32-bit)
                                  Intel(R) C, C++, Fortran Compilers for 
                                  applications running on Intel(R) 64; 
                                      Version 12.0
                                      Version 12.1
                                  MPICH mpich2-1.3.1 compiled with
                                      gcc 4.1.2 and gfortran 4.1.2

    Linux 2.6.32-220.7.1.el6.ppc64 gcc (GCC) 4.4.6 20110731 (Red Hat 4.4.6-3) 
    #1 SMP ppc64 GNU/Linux        g++ (GCC) 4.4.6 20110731 
    (ostrich)                     GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.4.6 20110731 (Red Hat 4.4.6-3)

    Linux 2.6.18-108chaos         Intel C, C++, Fortran Compilers Version 11.1
    #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux
    (LLNL Aztec)

    IBM Blue Gene/P               XL C for Blue Gene/P, bgxlc V9.0
    (LLNL uDawn)                  XL C++ for Blue Gene/P, bgxlC V9.0
                                  XL Fortran for Blue Gene/P, bgxlf0 V11.1

    SunOS 5.10 32- and 64-bit     Sun C 5.9 Sun OS_sparc Patch 124867-16
    (linew)                       Sun Fortran 95 8.3 Sun OS_sparc Patch 127000-13
                                  Sun C++ 5.9 Sun OS_sparc Patch 124863-26
                                  Sun C 5.11 SunOS_sparc
                                  Sun Fortran 95 8.5 SunOS_sparc
                                  Sun C++ 5.11 SunOS_sparc

    SGI Altix UV                  Intel(R) C, Fortran Compilers
    SGI ProPack 7 Linux               Version 11.1 20100806
    2.6.32.24-0.2.1.2230.2.PTF-   SGI MPT 2.02
    default #1 SMP                
    (NCSA ember)

    Dell NVIDIA Cluster           Intel(R) C, Fortran Compilers
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6        Version 12.0.4 20110427
    2.6.32-131.4.1.el6.x86_64     mvapich2 1.7rc1-intel-12.0.4
    (NCSA forge)

    Windows XP                    Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 10.1 (project files)
                                  Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)
                                  Visual Studio 2010 w/ Intel Fortran 12 (cmake)

    Windows XP x64                Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 10.1 (project files)
                                  Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)
                                  Visual Studio 2010 w/ Intel Fortran 12 (cmake)

    Windows 7                     Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)
                                  Visual Studio 2010 w/ Intel Fortran 12 (cmake)
                                  Cygwin(1.7.9 native gcc(4.5.3) compiler and gfortran)

    Windows 7 x64                 Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)
                                  Visual Studio 2010 w/ Intel Fortran 12 (cmake)
                                  Cygwin(1.7.9 native gcc(4.5.3) compiler and gfortran)

    Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8  i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1 (gcc)
    Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0  i686-apple-darwin10-g++-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1 (g++)
    Intel 64-bit                      (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)
    (fred)                        GNU Fortan (GCC) 4.6.1 (gfortran)
                                  Intel C (icc), Fortran (ifort), C++ (icpc)
                                      12.1.0.038 Build 20110811

    Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8  i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1 (gcc)
    Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0  i686-apple-darwin10-g++-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1 (g++)
    Intel 32-bit                      (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)
    (tejeda)                      GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.6.1 (gfortran)
                                  Intel C (icc), Fortran (ifort), C++ (icpc)
                                      12.1.0.038 Build 20110811

    Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3          GCC 4.2.1 gcc
    32- and 64-bit                GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.6.1 gfortran
    (duck)                        GCC 4.2.1. g++

    Debian6.0.5 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP i686 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5
                                  GNU Fortran (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5

    Debian6.0.5 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5
                                  GNU Fortran (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5

    Fedora17 3.5.2-1.fc17.i6866 #1 SMP i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (GCC) 4.7.0 20120507 (Red Hat 4.7.0-5)
                                  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.7.0 20120507 (Red Hat 4.7.0-5)

    Fedora17 3.5.2-1.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (GCC) 4.7.0 20120507 (Red Hat 4.7.0-5)
                                  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.7.0 20120507 (Red Hat 4.7.0-5)

    SUSE 12.1 3.1.9-1.4-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (SUSE Linux) 4.6.2
                                  GNU Fortran (SUSE Linux) 4.6.2

    SUSE 12.1 3.1.9-1.4-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (SUSE Linux) 4.6.2
                                  GNU Fortran (SUSE Linux) 4.6.2 

    Ubuntu 12.04 3.2.0-29-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP i686 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) 4.6.3
                                  GNU Fortran (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) 4.6.3

    Ubuntu 11.10 3.2.0-29-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) 4.6.3
                                  GNU Fortran (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) 4.6.3
    
    Cray Linux Environment (CLE)  PrgEnv-pgi 2.2.74
    hopper.nersc.gov              pgcc 11.9-0 64-bit target on x86-64 Linux -tp k8e
                                  pgf90 11.9-0 64-bit target on x86-64 Linux -tp k8e
                                  pgCC 11.9-0 64-bit target on x86-64 Linux -tp k8e
    

Tested Configuration Features Summary
=====================================

    In the tables below
          y   = tested 
          n   = not tested in this release
          C   = Cluster
          W   = Workstation
          x   = not working in this release
          dna = does not apply
          ( ) = footnote appears below second table
          <blank> = testing incomplete on this feature or platform 

Platform                                 C        F90    F90      C++   zlib  SZIP
                                         parallel        parallel
Solaris2.10 32-bit                         n        y      n        y     y     y
Solaris2.10 64-bit                         n        y      n        y     y     y
Windows 7                                  y        y      n        y     y     y
Windows 7     x64                          y        y      n        y     y     y
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 32-bit        n        y      n        y     y     n 
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 64-bit        n        y      n        y     y     y
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 32-bit                n        y      n        y     y     n
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 64-bit                n        y      n        y     y     y
AIX 5.3 32- and 64-bit                     y        y      y        y     y     y
FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE 32&64 bit               n        x      n        x     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 GNU (1)W  y        y(2)   y        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 Intel  W  n        y      n        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 PGI    W  n        y      n        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18 x86_64 GNU (1)  W  y        y(3)   y        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18 x86_64 Intel    W  n        y      n        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18 x86_64 PGI      W  n        y      n        y     y     y
Linux 2.6.32-220.7.1.el6.ppc64             n        y      n        y     y     y
SGI ProPack 7 Linux 2.6.32.24              y        y      y        y     y     y
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6                 y        y      y        y     y     y
CLE hopper.nersc.gov                       y        y(3)   y        y     y     n


Platform                                 Shared  Shared    Shared    Thread-  
                                         C libs  F90 libs  C++ libs  safe     
Solaris2.10 32-bit                         y       y         y         y        
Solaris2.10 64-bit                         n       n         n         n        
Windows 7                                  y       y         y         y
Windows 7 x64                              y       y         y         y
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 32-bit        y       n         y         n        
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 64-bit        y       n         y         n        
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 32-bit                y       n         y         y        
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 64-bit                y       n         y         y        
AIX 5.3 32- and 64-bit                     n       n         n         y        
FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE 32&64 bit               y       x         x         y        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 GNU (1)W  y       y(2)      y         y        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 Intel  W  y       y         y         n        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 PGI    W  y       y         y         n        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18 x86_64 GNU (1)  W  y       y         y         y        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18 x86_64 Intel    W  y       y         y         n        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18 x86_64 PGI      W  y       y         y         n        
Linux 2.6.32-220.7.1.el6.ppc64             y       y         y         n 
SGI ProPack 7 Linux 2.6.32.24              y       y         y         n 
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6                 y       y         y         n
CLE hopper.nersc.gov                       n       n         n         n

           (1) Fortran compiled with gfortran.
           (2) With PGI and Absoft compilers.
           (3) With PGI compiler for Fortran.
           (4) Using Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 10.1 (Cygwin shared libraries are not supported)
           (5) C and C++ shared libraries will not be built when Fortran is enabled.
    Compiler versions for each platform are listed in the preceding
    "Platforms Tested" table.


Known Problems
==============
* The data conversion test dt_arith.c has failures (segmentation fault) from
  "long double" to other datatypes during hard conversion when the library
  is built with the default GCC 4.2.1 on Mac Lion system.  It only happens 
  with optimization (-O3, -O2, and -O1).  Some newer versions of GCC do not
  have this problem.  Users should disable optimization or try newer version
  of GCC.
  (SLU - 2012/06/12 - HDFFV-8017)

* The h5repacktst test fails on AIX 32-bit because the test uses more
  memory than the default amount. The failure message typically looks like:

    "time: 0551-010 The process was stopped abnormally. Try again."

  This is an issue with the test only and does not represent a problem with
  the library. To allow the test to pass, request more memory when testing
  via appropriate command such as:

    $ env LDR_CNRTL=MAXDATA=0x20000000@DSA make check

  (AKC - 2012/05/09 - HDFFV-8016)

* The file_image test will fail in the "initial file image and callbacks in
  the core VFD" sub-test if the source directory is read-only as the test
  fails to create its test files in the build directory. This will be
  resolved in a future release.
  (AKC - 2012/05/05 - HDFFV-8009)
  
* The dt_arith test reports several errors involving "long double" on
  Mac OS X 10.7 Lion when any level of optimization is enabled. The test does
  not fail in debug mode. This will be addressed in a future release.
  (SLU - 2012/05/08)

* The following h5dump test case fails in BG/P machines (and potentially other
  machines that use a command script to launch executables):

   h5dump --no-compact-subset -d "AHFINDERDIRECT::ah_centroid_t[0] it=0 tl=0"
     tno-subset.h5
  
  This is due to the embedded spaces in the dataset name being interpreted
  by the command script launcher as meta-characters, thus passing three
  arguments to h5dump's -d flag. The command passes if run by hand, just
  not via the test script.
  (AKC - 2012/05/03)

* The ph5diff (parallel h5diff) tool can intermittently hang in parallel mode
  when comparing two HDF5 files that contain objects with the same names but
  with different object types.
  (JKM - 2012/04/27)

* On hopper, the build failed when RUNSERIAL and RUNPARALLEL are set
  to aprun -np X, because the H5lib_settings.c file was not generated
  properly. Not setting those environment variables works, because
  configure was able to automatically detect that it's a Cray system
  and used the proper launch commands when necessary. 
  (MSC - 2012/04/18)

* The data conversion test dt_arith.c fails in "long double" to integer
  conversion on Ubuntu 11.10 (3.0.0.13 kernal) with GCC 4.6.1 if the library
  is built with optimization -O3 or -O2.  The older GCC (4.5) or newer kernal
  (3.2.2 on Fedora) doesn't have the problem.  Users should lower the 
  optimization level (-O1 or -O0) by defining CFLAGS in the command line of 
  "configure" like:

      CFLAGS=-O1 ./configure

  This will overwrite the library's default optimization level.
  (SLU - 2012/02/07 - HDFFV-7829)

* The STDIO VFD does not work on some architectures, possibly due to 32/64
  bit or large file issues.  The basic STDIO VFD test is known to fail on
  64-bit SunOS 5.10 on SPARC when built with -m64 and 32-bit OS X/Darwin
  10.7.0.  The STDIO VFD test has been disabled while we investigate and
  a fix should appear in a future release.
  (DER - 2011/10/14)

* h5diff can report inconsistent results when comparing datasets of enum type
  that contain invalid values.  This is due to how enum types are handled in
  the library and will be addressed in a future release.
  (DER - 2011/10/14 - HDFFV-7527)

* The links test can fail under the stdio VFD due to some issues with external
  links.  This will be investigated and fixed in a future release.
  (DER - 2011/10/14 - HDFFV-7768)

* After the shared library support was fixed for some bugs, it was discovered
  that "make prefix=XXX install" no longer works for shared libraries. It
  still works correctly for static libraries. Therefore, if you want to
  install the HDF5 shared libraries in a location such as /usr/local/hdf5,
  you need to specify the location via the --prefix option during configure 
  time. E.g, ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/hdf5 ...
  (AKC - 2011/05/07 - HDFFV-7583)

* The parallel test, t_shapesame, in testpar/, may run for a long time and may
  be terminated by the alarm signal.  If that happens, one can increase the
  alarm seconds (default is 1200 seconds = 20 minutes) by setting the
  environment variable, $HDF5_ALARM_SECONDS, to a larger value such as 3600
  (60 minutes).  Note that the t_shapesame test may fail in some systems 
  (see the "While working on the 1.8.6 release..." problem below).  If 
  it does, it will waste more time if $HDF5_ALARM_SECONDS is set
  to a larger value.
  (AKC - 2011/05/07)

* The C++ and FORTRAN bindings are not currently working on FreeBSD.
  (QAK - 2011/04/26)

* Shared Fortran libraries are not quite working on AIX. While they are
  generated when --enable-shared is specified, the fortran and hl/fortran
  tests fail. We are looking into the issue. HL and C++ shared libraries
  should now be working as intended, however.
  (MAM - 2011/04/20)

* The --with-mpe configure option does not work with Mpich2.
  (AKC - 2011/03/10)

* While working on the 1.8.6 release of HDF5, a bug was discovered that can
  occur when reading from a dataset in parallel shortly after it has been
  written to collectively. The issue was exposed by a new test in the parallel
  HDF5 test suite, but had existed before that. We believe the problem lies with
  certain MPI implementations and/or file systems.

  We have provided a pure MPI test program, as well as a standalone HDF5
  program, that can be used to determine if this is an issue on your system.
  They should be run across multiple nodes with a varying number of processes.
  These programs can be found at:
  http://www.hdfgroup.org/ftp/HDF5/examples/known_problems/
  (NAF - 2011/01/19)

* The library's test dt_arith.c showed a compiler's rounding problem on
  Cygwin when converting from unsigned long long to long double.  The 
  library's own conversion works fine.  We defined a macro for Cygwin to
  skip this test until we can solve the problem.
  (SLU - 2010/05/05 - HDFFV-1264)

* All the VFL drivers aren't backward compatible.  In H5FDpublic.h, the
  structure H5FD_class_t changed in 1.8.  There is new parameter added to
  get_eoa and set_eoa callback functions.  A new callback function
  get_type_map was added in.  The public function H5FDrealloc was taken
  out in 1.8.  The problem only happens when users define their own driver
  for 1.6 and try to plug in 1.8 library.  Because there's only one user 
  complaining about it, we (Elena, Quincey, and I) decided to leave it as 
  it is (see bug report #1279).  Quincey will make a plan for 1.10.
  (SLU - 2010/02/02)

* MinGW has a missing libstdc++.dll.a library file and will not successfully link
  C++ applications/tests. Do not use the enable-cxx configure option. Read all of
  the INSTALL_MINGW.txt file for all restrictions.
  (ADB - 2009/11/11)

* The --enable-static-exec configure flag will only statically link libraries
  if the static version of that library is present. If only the shared version
  of a library exists (i.e., most system libraries on Solaris, AIX, and Mac,
  for example, only have shared versions), the flag should still result in a 
  successful compilation, but note that the installed executables will not be 
  fully static. Thus, the only guarantee on these systems is that the 
  executable is statically linked with just the HDF5 library.
  (MAM - 2009/11/04)
  
* The PathScale MPI implementation, accessing a Panasas file system, would
  cause H5Fcreate() with H5F_ACC_EXCL to fail even when the file does not
  exist. This is due to the MPI_File_open() call failing if the mode has
  the MPI_MODE_EXCL bit set.
  (AKC - 2009/08/11 - HDFFV-988)
 
* Parallel tests failed with 16 processes with data inconsistency at testphdf5
  / dataset_readAll. Parallel tests also failed with 32 and 64 processes with
  collective abort of all ranks at t_posix_compliant / allwrite_allread_blocks
  with MPI IO.
  (CMC - 2009/04/28)

* For Red Storm, a Cray XT3 system, the tools/h5ls/testh5ls.sh and
  tools/h5copy/testh5copy.sh will fail some of its sub-tests. These sub-tests
  are expected to fail and should exit with a non-zero code but the yod
  command does not propagate the exit code of the executables. Yod always
  returns 0 if it can launch the executable.  The test suite shell expects
  a non-zero for this particular test, therefore it concludes the test has
  failed when it receives 0 from yod.  Skip all the "failing" test for now
  by changing them as following.

  ======== Original tools/h5ls/testh5ls.sh =========
  TOOLTEST tgroup-1.ls 1 -w80 -r -g tgroup.h5
  ======== Change to ===============================
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST tgroup-1.ls 1 -w80 -r -g tgroup.h5
  ==================================================

  ======== Original tools/h5copy/testh5copy.sh =========
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d grp_rename
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d /grp_rename/grp_dsets
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_dsets -d /E/F/grp_dsets
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_nested -d /G/H/grp_nested
  H5LSTEST $FILEOUT
  ======== Change to ===============================
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d grp_rename
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d /grp_rename/grp_dsets
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_dsets -d /E/F/grp_dsets
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_nested -d /G/H/grp_nested
  echo SKIP H5LSTEST $FILEOUT
  ==================================================
  (AKC - 2008/11/10)
  
* For Red Storm, a Cray XT3 system, the yod command sometimes gives the
  message,  "yod allocation delayed for node recovery".  This interferes with
  test suites that do not expect to see this message.  See the section of "Red
  Storm" in file INSTALL_parallel for a way to deal with this problem.
  (AKC - 2008/05/28)

* On an Intel 64 Linux cluster (RH 4, Linux 2.6.9) with Intel 10.0 compilers, 
  use -mp -O1 compilation flags to build the libraries. A higher level of 
  optimization causes failures in several HDF5 library tests. 

* On mpich 1.2.5 and 1.2.6, if more than two processes contribute no IO and 
  the application asks to do collective IO, we have found that when using 4 
  processors, a simple collective write will sometimes be hung. This can be 
  verified with t_mpi test under testpar.

* A dataset created or rewritten with a v1.6.3 library or after cannot be read 
  with the v1.6.2 library or before when the Fletcher32 EDC filter is enabled.
  There was a bug in the calculation of the Fletcher32 checksum in the 
  library before v1.6.3; the checksum value was not consistent between big-
  endian and little-endian systems.  This bug was fixed in Release 1.6.3.  
  However, after fixing the bug, the checksum value was no longer the same as 
  before on little-endian system.  Library releases after 1.6.4 can still read 
  datasets created or rewritten with an HDF5 library of v1.6.2 or before.  
  (SLU - 2005/06/30)

* On IBM AIX systems, parallel HDF5 mode will fail some tests with error
  messages like "INFO: 0031-XXX ...".  This is from the command `poe'.
  Set the environment variable MP_INFOLEVEL to 0 to minimize the messages
  and run the tests again.

  The tests may fail with messages like "The socket name is already in use",  
  but HDF5 does not use sockets.  This failure is due to problems with the 
  poe command trying to set up the debug socket.  To resolve this problem, 
  check to see whether there are many old /tmp/s.pedb.* files staying around.  
  These are sockets used by the poe command and left behind due to failed 
  commands.  First, ask your system administrator to clean them out.  
  Lastly, request IBM to provide a means to run poe without the debug socket.
  (AKC - 2004/12/08)