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

[Francesc Altet]

Hi Perry,

El dv 20 de 04 del 2007 a les 17:14 -0400, en/na Perry Greenfield va
escriure:
> On Apr 20, 2007, at 4:26 PM, James Turner wrote:
> > It sounds like HDF5 provides much the same capabilities as FITS, the
> > main file standard used for some decades in astronomy. It also sounds
> > like there may be a lot of overlap between Pytables and STScI's binary
> > tables, as implemented in PyFITS. I imagine that's why Pytables was
> > based on numarray, come to think of it... Does anyone have a good
> > overview of how they compare, or know whether this HDF format is the
> 
> 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.

Sorry for my ignorance, but can you explain what 'archival' term means
in this context?  I suppose that it has a very concrete meaning, but I
can't realize why a flexible format like HDF5 is not appropriate for
archival (in the general sense of the term) purposes.

Cheers,

-- 
Francesc Altet    |  Be careful about using the following code --
Carabos Coop. V.  |  I've only proven that it works, 
www.carabos.com   |  I haven't tested it. -- Donald Knuth