What it is (not)

HDF.PInvoke is a collection of PInvoke signatures for the HDF5 C-API. It's practically code-free, which means we can blame all the bugs on Microsoft or The HDF Group 😄

It is not a high-level .NET interface for HDF5. "It's the GCD of .NET bindings for HDF5, not the LCM."

Current Release Version(s)

How "stuff" is versioned.

Quick Install:

To install the latest HDF.PInvoke 1.8, run the following command in the Package Manager Console

    Install-Package HDF.PInvoke -Version 1.8.21.1

To install the latest HDF.PInvoke 1.10, run the following command in the Package Manager Console

    Install-Package HDF.PInvoke -Version 1.10.6.1

Prerequisites

The HDF.PInvoke.dll managed assembly depends on the following native DLLs (32-bit and 64-bit):

• HDF5 core API, hdf5.dll
• HDF5 high-level APIs, hdf5_hl.dll
• Gzip compression, zlib.dll
• Szip compression, szip.dll
• The C-runtime of the Visual Studio version used to build the former, e.g., msvcr120.dll for Visual Studio 2013

All native dependencies, built with thread-safety enabled, are included in the NuGet packages, except the Visual Studio C-runtime, which is available from Microsoft as Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013. In the unlikely event that they aren't already installed on your system, go get 'em! (See this link for the rationale behind not distributing the Visual Studio C-runtime in the NuGet package.)

The DLL Resolution Process

On the first call to an H5* function, the application's configuration file (e.g., YourApplication.exe.config) is searched for the key NativeDependenciesAbsolutePath, whose value, if found, is added to the DLL-search path. If this key is not specified in the application's config-file, then the HDF.PInvoke.dll assembly detects the processor architecture (32- or 64-bit) of the hosting process and expects to find the native DLLs in the bin32 or bin64 subdirectories, relative to its location. For example, if HDF.PInvoke.dll lives in C:\bin, it looks for the native DLLs in C:\bin\bin32 and C:\bin\bin64. Finally, the PATH environment variable of the running process is searched for other locations, such as installed by the HDF5 installers.

Two Major HDF5 Versions for the Price of One (Free)

The HDF Group currently maintains two major HDF5 release families, HDF5 1.8 and HDF5 1.10. The Visual Studio Solution is set up to build the HDF.PInvoke.dll .NET assemblies for the "Any CPU" platform in the Debug and Release configurations. Support for the HDF5 1.8 or 1.10 API is toggled via the HDF5_VER1_10 conditional compilation symbol in the Build properties of the HDF.PInvoke and UnitTest projects.

License

HDF.PInvoke is part of HDF5. It is subject to the same terms and conditions as HDF5. Please review COPYING or https://support.hdfgroup.org/ftp/HDF5/releases/COPYING for the details. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Supporting HDF.PInvoke

The best way to support HDF.Pinvoke is to contribute to it either by reporting bugs, writing documentation (e.g., the cookbook), or sending pull requests.