[SciPy-user] HDF5 vs FITS (was: Fast saving/loading of huge matrices)

[James Turner]

Hi Perry,

 > I think that is a bit too broadly posed to answer in any simple way
 > (if you are wondering how HDF and FITS compare). Speed? Flexibility?
 > Etc. FITS is generally much less flexible. However, it is archival.
 > Something that HDF has a harder time claiming. And it is very well
 > entrenched in astronomy.

Thanks for the interesting summary. My question was a bit vague just
because I was asking more out of curiosity than for a specific
application.

Actually, in the back of my mind I was wondering how SciPy and STScI
Python might end up playing together... I think SciPy will prove
rather useful and it obviously helps to talk the same language as
other users/developers (so thumbs up for NumPy :-) ). Maybe if there
were a single interface to image/table-type formats, it would allow
more interaction -- but I imagine such a thing might be impractical
to implement. Don't worry too much -- I'm just thinking out loud!

Cheers,

James.