HDF5 for Python (h5py) 1.3.1 *BETA* =================================== HDF5 for Python 1.3.1-beta is now available! This release includes numerous bugfixes and performance improvements, along with support for new versions of HDF5 and Python. In particular, HDF5 1.8.5 is now supported, along with Python 2.7 on Windows. The beta will be available for approximately two weeks. Bug reports and comments are more than welcome, either at the h5py mailing list (h5py at googlegroups) or directly via the bug tracker at h5py.googlecode.com. What is h5py? ------------- HDF5 for Python (h5py) is a general-purpose Python interface to the Hierarchical Data Format library, version 5. HDF5 is a mature scientific software library originally developed at NCSA, designed for the fast, flexible storage of enormous amounts of data.
From a Python programmer's perspective, HDF5 provides a robust way to store data, organized by name in a tree-like fashion. You can create datasets (arrays on disk) hundreds of gigabytes in size, and perform random-access I/O on desired sections. Datasets are organized in a filesystem-like hierarchy using containers called "groups", and accesed using the tradional POSIX /path/to/resource syntax.
In addition to providing interoperability with existing HDF5 datasets and platforms, h5py is a convienient way to store and retrieve arbitrary NumPy data and metadata. HDF5 datasets and groups are presented as "array-like" and "dictionary-like" objects in order to make best use of existing experience. For example, dataset I/O is done with NumPy-style slicing, and group access is via indexing with string keys. Standard Python exceptions (KeyError, etc) are raised in response to underlying HDF5 errors. Highlights in 1.3.1 ------------------- - Windows binaries now built against NumPy 1.5 - Fix for new identifier behavior means HDF5 1.8.5 is now supported - Workaround for a serious performance bug in HDF5 relating to chunked data - Fixed File reference count glitch which caused some one-liners to fail - Modified atexit hook which conflicted with PyTables - Support for Cython 0.13 - Fixed conflict between IPython completer and multiprocessing module Where to get it & where to complain ----------------------------------- * Main website, documentation: http://h5py.alfven.org * Downloads, bug tracker: http://h5py.googlecode.com * Mailing list: h5py at googlegroups.com Requires -------- * Linux, Mac OS-X or Windows * Python 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7 * NumPy 1.0.3 or later * HDF5 1.6.5 or later (including 1.8); HDF5 is included with the Windows version.