[Nexus] Release of Version 2.0.0 (including HDF5 support)

[Brian Tieman]

Are there any driving reasons to use HDF5 over HDF4?  Does it provide better
performance?  Better compression?  Easier to handle files?  Increased
compatability? Etc...

I've long thought about moving to HDF5 independant of Nexus but I haven't seen a
compelling reason to do so.  Maybe those of you who have used it can provide
some insight?

Brian Tieman
Argonne National Laboratory

Ray Osborn wrote:

> Version 2.0.0 of the NeXus API has just been formally released.  Please
> visit the web pages at <http://www.neutron.anl.gov/nexus/> for further
> details.
>
> This is the first update of the major version number since the API was first
> released, but we felt this was justified since it is the first version to
> include support for HDF5.  The latest version allows the reading and writing
> of both HDF4 and HDF5 files without any changes to the API (provided both
> libraries are installed on your system).  Programs for reading NeXus files
> will only need relinking, not rewriting. Programs to write NeXus files
> choose which version of HDF when opening the file, but again do not require
> any other modification except for minor changes in the way data compression
> is handled.
>
> I would like to thank Mark Koennecke and Uwe Filges for producing the HDF5
> version, and making the transition so transparent to the end user.  It is an
> impressive achievement given that HDF4 and HDF5 are substantially different.
>
> The only other new feature of this release is the addition of two new
> utilities.  NXtoXML converts an existing NeXus file to an ASCII XML file in
> a format identical to the NeXus meta-DTD format announced earlier.  NXtoDTD
> does the same conversion but does not include any data.  It will therefore
> produce the skeleton of a meta-DTD file, which will only need annotating.
> We encourage people who have existing NeXus files to produce such files as a
> way of documenting existing format definitions.
>
> This version has been tested on DEC Alpha Unix, Red Hat Linux, Windows, and
> Mac OS X using both HDF4 and HDF5 libraries, and DEC Alpha/VMS using the
> HDF4 library.
>
> Although we have done our best to test this version before its release, we
> would appreciate immediate feedback if you encounter any problems.
>
> --
> Dr Ray Osborn                Tel: +1 (630) 252-9011
> Materials Science Division   Fax: +1 (630) 252-7777
> Argonne National Laboratory  E-mail: ROsborn at anl.gov
> Argonne, IL 60439-4845
>
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