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HDF4 is the older version of the format, although still actively supported by The HDF Group. It supports a proliferation of different data models, including multidimensional arrays, [[Raster graphics|raster images]], and tables. Each defines a specific aggregate data type and provides an [[Application Programming Interface|API]] for reading, writing, and organizing the data and metadata. New data models can be added by the HDF developers or users.
HDF is self-describing, allowing an application to interpret the structure and contents of a file with no outside information. One HDF file can hold a mix of related objects which can be accessed as a group or as individual objects. Users can create their own grouping structures called "vgroups."<ref name="foldoc">{{foldoc|Hierarchical+Data+Format}}</ref>
The HDF4 format has many limitations.<ref>[http://www.hdfgroup.org/h5h4-diff.html How is HDF5 different from HDF4?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090330052722/http://www.hdfgroup.org/h5h4-diff.html |date=2009-03-30 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF-FAQ.html#6b |title=Are there limitations to HDF4 files? |access-date=2009-03-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160419122423/http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF-FAQ.html#6b |archive-date=2016-04-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref> It lacks a clear object model, which makes continued support and improvement difficult. Supporting many different interface styles (images, tables, arrays) leads to a complex API. Support for metadata depends on which interface is in use; ''SD'' (Scientific Dataset) objects support arbitrary named attributes, while other types only support predefined metadata. Perhaps most importantly, the use of 32-bit signed integers for addressing limits HDF4 files to a maximum of 2 GB, which is unacceptable in many modern scientific applications.
*Dataset data cannot be freed in a file without generating a file copy using an external tool (h5repack).<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rossant|first1=Cyrille|title=Moving away from HDF5|url=http://cyrille.rossant.net/moving-away-hdf5/|website=cyrille.rossant.net|access-date=21 April 2016}}</ref>
===Officially supported APIs === ▼==Interfaces==
▲===Officially supported APIs===
* [[C (programming language)|C]]
* [[C++]]
* HDF5 Dimension Scale (H5DS) – allows dimension scales to be added to HDF5
*[[Java (programming language)|Java]]
===Third-party bindings===
* [[CGNS]] uses HDF5 as main storage
* [[Common Lisp]] library [https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5-cffi hdf5-cffi]
* [[D (programming language)|D]] offers [https://github.com/Laeeth/d_hdf5 bindings to the C API], with a high-level h5py style D wrapper under development
* [[Dymola]] introduced support for HDF5 export using an implementation called [[Scientific Data Format|SDF]] (Scientific Data Format) with release Dymola 2016 FD01
* [[Erlang (programming language)|Erlang]], [[Elixir (programming language)|Elixir]], and [[LFE (programming language)|LFE]] may use the [https://github.com/RomanShestakov/erlhdf5 bindings for BEAM languages]
* [[GNU Data Language]]
* [[Go (programming language)|Go]] - [https://github.com/gonum gonum]'s [https://github.com/gonum/hdf5 hdf5] package.
* [http://www.hdfql.com HDFql] enables users to manage HDF5 files through a high-level language (similar to SQL) in C, C++, Java, Python, C#, Fortran and R.
* [[Haskell]] offers [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/hdf5 bindings to the C API].
* [https://github.com/highfive-devs/highfive HighFive] is a modern, user-friendly and open source [[C++]] wrapper for the HDF5 library.
* [[Huygens Software]] uses HDF5 as primary storage format since version 3.5
* [[IDL (programming language)|IDL]]
* [[IGOR Pro]] offers [http://www.wavemetrics.com/products/igorpro/dataaccess/hdf5.htm full support of HDF5] files.
* JHDF5,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://wiki-bsse.ethz.ch/display/JHDF5 |title=JHDF5 library |access-date=2009-06-10 |archive-date=2020-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201201093220/https://wiki-bsse.ethz.ch/display/JHDF5 |url-status=dead }}</ref> an alternative [[Java (programming language)|Java]] binding that takes a different approach from the official HDF5 Java binding which some users find simpler
* [https://jhdf.io jHDF] A pure [[Java (programming language)|Java]] implementation providing read write access to HDF5 files
* [[JSON]] through [http://hdf5-json.readthedocs.org hdf5-json].
* [[Julia (programming language)|Julia]] support for HDF5 is available through the [https://github.com/JuliaIO/HDF5.jl HDF5] and [https://github.com/JuliaIO/JLD2.jl JLD2] packages.
* [[LabVIEW]] can gain HDF support through third-party libraries, such as [http://h5labview.sourceforge.net/ h5labview] and [http://www.upvi.net/main/index.php/products/lvhdf5 lvhdf5].
* [[Lua (programming language)|Lua]] through the [http://colberg.org/lua-hdf5 lua-hdf5] library.
* [[MATLAB]], [[Scilab]] or [[GNU Octave|Octave]] – use HDF5 as primary storage format in recent releases
* [[Mathematica]]<ref>[http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/ref/format/HDF.html HDF Import and Export] Mathematica documentation</ref> offers immediate analysis of HDF and HDF5 data
* [[Perl]]<ref>[https://metacpan.org/release/PDL-IO-HDF5 PDL::IO::HDF5]</ref>
* [[Python (programming language)|Python]] supports HDF5 via [http://www.h5py.org h5py] (both high- and low-level access to HDF5 abstractions) and via [https://pytables.github.io/index.html PyTables] (a high-level interface with advanced indexing and database-like query capabilities). HDF4 is available via [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-hdf4 Python-HDF4] and/or [http://hdfeos.org/software/pyhdf.php PyHDF] for both Python 2 and Python 3. The popular data manipulation package [[Pandas (software)|pandas]] can import from and export to HDF5 via {{Proper name|PyTables}}.
* [[R (programming language)|R]] offers support in the [http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/rhdf5.html rhdf5] and [https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=hdf5r hdf5r] packages.
* [[Rust (programming_language)|Rust]] can gain HDF support through third-party libraries like [https://crates.io/crates/hdf5-metno hdf5-metno].
==Tools==
* [https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5-spark-connector Apache Spark HDF5 Connector] HDF5 Connector for Apache Spark
* [https://github.com/apache/drill/tree/master/contrib/format-hdf5 Apache Drill HDF5 Plugin] HDF5 Plugin for Apache Drill enables SQL Queries over HDF5 Files.
* [https://wiki.earthdata.nasa.gov/display/HPD/HDF+Product+Designer/ HDF Product Designer] ''Interoperable HDF5 data product creation GUI tool'' ( no longer available)
* [http://www.space-research.org/ HDF Explorer] A data visualization program that reads the HDF, HDF5 and netCDF data file formats
* [http://www.hdfgroup.org/hdf-java-html/hdfview/ HDFView] A browser and editor for HDF files
* [http://www.vitables.org/ ViTables] A browser and editor for HDF5 and PyTables files written in Python
* [https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/ Panoply] A netCDF, HDF and GRIB Data Viewer
* [https://github.com/silx-kit/silx silx] A browser for HDF files specifically for synchrotron X-ray data
* [https://github.com/silx-kit/h5web h5web] For viewing HDF files in the browser or in Visual Studio Code
==See also==
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