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Hierarchical Data Format

lastmod 2025-01-07created 2016-01-258 edits

Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) is a file format for storing large amounts of data, maintained by the HDF Gruop. It is under a BSD-like license. See the homepage for details.

How to install

If it does not compile properly, try adding the --disable-stream-vfd option. The simple way is to compile using cmake.

HDF file format overview

Scientists generally create and process data on many kinds of computers, use various software packages to process data files, and share data with other scientists who use different computers and software. In such an environment, many kinds of information are stored in one file or in several files, and the degree to which different information is mixed in each file also varies. Some data may be distributed across many files, so files may be conceptually related to each other while being physically separate.

HDF (Hierarchical Data Format) is a multi-object file format for sharing scientific data in such distributed environments. HDF was developed at NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) to meet the needs of various scientists carrying out projects in many fields. In particular, HDF was made to satisfy many requirements for recording scientific data, such as the following.

  • It supports data formats and metadata formats widely used by scientists.
  • It must be efficient at reading and writing large data.
  • It must be usable regardless of computer model.
  • It must work smoothly with other standard formats and be extensible for future improvements.

Format

  • HDF4: The legacy data format; still supported, but HDF5 is recommended for new projects.
  • HDF5: The current standard data format.

Pros

It has the following advantages.

  • Like XML, it is self-describing, so the data format can be described inside the file.
  • It can store large amounts of data.
  • Search is fast.
  • It supports parallel I/O.
  • It allows random access to data.
  • It is stable, having been developed for over 20 years.

Local Download

HDF5 1.8.16
Hdf5-1.8.16.tar.gz
HDF5 1.8.18
Hdf5-1.8.18.tar.gz

See also

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