hdf5/RELEASE.txt

 
                       HDF5 Release 1.5-snap0


INTRODUCTION

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
(ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) in the directory:

     /HDF/HDF5/docs/

For more information look at the HDF5 home page at:
   
    http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5/

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to:

    hdfhelp@ncsa.uiuc.edu

CONTENTS

- New Features
- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0
- Platforms Tested
- Known Problems

Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.4.0
==========================

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 RCSID string in H5public.h was causing the C++ compiling problem
     because when it was included multiple times, C++ did not like multiple
     definitions of the same static variable.  All occurance of RCSID
     definition are removed since we have not used it consistently before.

Configuration
-------------
    * Changed the default value of $NPROCS from 2 to 3 since 3 processes
      have a much bigger chance catching parallel errors than just 2.



Tools
-----

Documentation
-------------


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


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
  Cray SV1 sn9605 10.0.0.7      Cray Standard C Version 6.4.0.0
                                Cray Fortran Version 3.4.0.2
  FreeBSD 4.2                   gcc 2.95.2
                                g++ 2.95.2
  HP-UX B.10.20                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.10.32.30
  HP-UX B.11.00                 HP C  HP92453-01 A.11.00.13
  IRIX 6.5                      MIPSpro cc 7.30
  IRIX64 6.5 (64 & n32)         MIPSpro cc 7.3.1m
                                mpt.1.4.0.2
                                mpich-1.2.1
  Linux 2.2.16-3smp             gcc-2.95.2
                                g++ 2.95.2
                                pgf90 3.1-3
  OSF1 V4.0                     DEC-V5.2-040
                                Digital Fortran 90 V4.1-270
  SunOS 5.6                     WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0 
  (Solaris 2.6)                 WorkShop Compilers 5.0 99/10/25 Fortran 90
                                       2.0 Patch 107356-04
                                Workshop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C++ 5.0
  SunOS 5.7                     WorkShop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C 5.0
  (Solaris 2.7)                 WorkShop Compilers 5.0 99/10/25 Fortran 90
                                       2.0 Patch 107356-04
                                Workshop Compilers 5.0 98/12/15 C++ 5.0
  TFLOPS r1.0.4 v4.0            mpich-1.2.1 with local changes
  Windows NT4.0, 2000 (NT5.0)   MSVC++ 6.0
  Windows 98                    MSVC++ 6.0

Known Problems
==============

* The stream-vfd test uses ip port 10007 for testing.  If another application
  is already using that port address, the test will hang indefinitely and
  has to be terminated by the kill command.  To try the test again, change
  the port address in test/stream_test.c to one not being used in the host.

* The --enable-static-exec configure flag fails to compile for Solaris
  platforms. This is due to the fact that not all of the system
  libraries on Solaris are available in a static format.

  The --enable-static-exec configure flag also fails to correctly compile
  on Linux platforms using the gcc-2.95.2 compiler.
  
  The --enable-static-exec configure flag also fails to correctly compile
  on IBM SP2 platform for the serial mode.  The parallel mode works fine
  with this option.
  
  It is suggested that you don't use this option on these platforms
  during configuration.

* With the gcc 2.95.2 compiler, HDF 5 uses the `-ansi' flag during
  compilation. The ANSI version of the compiler complains about not being
  able to handle the `long long' datatype with the warning:

        warning: ANSI C does not support `long long'
  
  This warning is innocuous and can be safely ignored.

* SunOS 5.6 with C WorkShop Compilers 4.2:  Hyperslab selections will 
  fail if library is compiled using optimization of any level.

* When building hdf5 tools and applications on windows platform, a linking
  warning: defaultlib "LIBC" conflicts with use of other libs will appear
  on debug version when running VC++6.0. This warning doesn't affect building
  and testing hdf5 applications. We will continue investigating this.

* h5toh4 converter fails two cases(tstr.h5 and tmany.h5) for release dll version on
  windows 2000 and NT. The reason is possibly due to windows NT DLL
  convention on freeing memory. It seems that memory cannot be free
  across library or DLL. It is still under investigated.

* The Stream VFD was not tested yet under Windows.
  It is not supported in the TFLOPS machine.

* Shared library option is broken for IBM SP and some Origin 2000 platforms.
  One needs to run ./configure with '--disable-shared'

* The ./dsets tests failed in the TFLOPS machine if the test program,
  dsets.c, is compiled with the -O option.  The hdf5 library still works
  correctly with the -O option.  The test program works fine if it is
  compiled with -O1 or -O0.  Only -O (same as -O2) causes the test
  program to fail.

* Certain platforms give false negatives when testing h5ls:
    - Solaris x86 2.5.1, Cray T3E and Cray J90 give errors during testing
        when displaying object references in certain files.  These are benign 
        differences due to the difference in sizes of the objects created on
        those platforms.  h5ls appears to be dumping object references
        correctly.
    - Cray J90 (and Cray T3E?) give errors during testing when displaying
        some floating-point values.  These are benign differences due to the
        different precision in the values displayed and h5ls appears to be
        dumping floating-point numbers correctly.

* Before building HDF5 F90 Library from source on Crays (T3E and J90) 
  replace H5Aff.f90, H5Dff.f90 and H5Pff.f90 files in the fortran/src subdirectory 
  in the top level directory with the Cray-specific files from the 
  ftp://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/pub/ougoing/hdf5/hdf5-1.4.0-beta/F90_source_for_Crays
  directory.

* 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