[Nexus] interest in HDF4 support

[Tobias.Richter at diamond.ac.uk]

Hi,

Nxconvert in principle converts files between the three NeXus backend formats HDF5, HDF4 and XML. I have just discovered that at least for the last seven years the only backend nxconvert was able to convert TO HDF4 was HDF4 (a noop basically). So we're clearly not very serious about supporting HDF4.

The NIAC has decided about 4 years ago that HDF5 is the primary backend. In the future we may rely on container format features that are not present in XML or HDF4. And we are very close to that being actually the case relatively soon.

I have no personal interest in HDF4. So I am trying to understand the future use case for it. Are facilities actively using HDF4? FROM HDF4 we can convert to both XML and HDF5. So for long term access with the current version of the API there always would be a path to HDF5 in case we dropped HDF4 support.

So who cares enough about HDF4 to reply to this (with any comment whatsoever)?

Regards,

Tobias



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