HDF5 Tools

HDF5 Tool Interfaces

HDF5-related tools are available to assist the user in a variety of activities, including examining or managing HDF5 files, converting raw data between HDF5 and other special-purpose formats, moving data and files between the HDF4 and HDF5 formats, measuring HDF5 library performance, and managing HDF5 library and application compilation, installation and configuration. Unless otherwise specified below, these tools are distributed and installed with HDF5.

• User utilities:
  • h5dump -- Enables a user to examine the contents of an HDF5 file and dump those contents to an ASCII file.
  • h5ls -- Lists specified features of HDF5 file contents.
  • h5diff and ph5diff -- Compare two HDF5 files and report the differences.
  • h5repack -- Copies an HDF5 file to a new file with or without compression and/or chunking.
  • h5repart -- Repartitions a file, creating a family of files.
  • h5jam -- Adds a user block to the front of an HDF5 file .
  • h5unjam -- Splits an existing user block from an HDF5 file, placing it in a separate file.
  • h5copy -- Copies HDF5 objects from a file to a new file
  • h5mkgrp -- Creates a new HDF5 group in a file
  • h5stat -- Reports statistics regarding an HDF5 file and the objects in the file.
  • h5check -- Verifies that an HDF5 file is validly encoded.
  • h5perf -- Measures Parallel HDF5 performance.
  • h5perf_serial -- Measures HDF5 serial performance.
    
    
• Configuration and library management utilities:
  • h5redeploy -- Updates HDF5 compiler tools after an HDF5 software installation in a new location.
  • h5cc and h5pcc -- Simplify the compilation of HDF5 programs written in C.
  • h5fc and h5pfc -- Simplify the compilation of HDF5 programs written in Fortran90.
  • h5c++ -- Simplifies the compilation of HDF5 programs written in C++.
    
    
• Java-based tools for HDF5 for viewing, manipulating, and generating HDF4 and HDF5 files:
  (Distributed separately; external link is http://www.hdfgroup.org/hdf-java-html/)
  • HDFview -- a browser that works with both HDF4 and HDF5 files and can be used to transfer data between the two formats
  • Java interfaces for both the HDF4 and HDF5 libraries
  • Other HDF4- and HDF5-related products
    
    
• Data conversion utilities:
  • h5import -- Imports data into an existing or new HDF5 file.
  • gif2h5 -- Converts a GIF file to an HDF5 file.
  • h52gif -- Converts images in an HDF5 file to a GIF file.
    
    
• HDF5/HDF4 conversion tools:
  (Distributed separately; external link is http://www.hdfgroup.org/h4toh5/.)
  • H4toH5 Conversion Library -- Provides APIs for use in tools that perform customized conversions of HDF4 files to HDF5 files.
  • h5toh4 -- Converts an HDF5 file to an HDF4 file.
  • h4toh5 -- Converts an HDF4 file to an HDF5 file.
    
    
• Other tools, including third-party and commercial utilities and applications:
  (Distributed separately; external link is http://www.hdfgroup.org/tools5.html.)

The HDF Group Help Desk:
Describes HDF5 Release 1.8.7, targeted for May 2011.