H52O - map HDF5 files to .NET Objects

Turn concise .NET code like this...

    class MyObject : H5Object
    {
        [Shape(200, 5)]
        public dset2d<double> temperatureReading;

        [Shape(200)]
        public dset1d<long> timestamps;

        [Shape(5)]
        public string1d cityNames;

        public MyObject(H5Group location)
            : base(location)
        {
            cityNames.Values = new string[] {
                "Chicago", "New York", "San Francisco",
                "Springfield, Nebraska", "New Berlin",
            };
        }
    }

...into a HDF5 file structure like this:

The HDF group publishes the specification for the hierarchical data format, a file format well suited to store huge amounts of binary data in a structured way.

H52O attempts to tick all of the boxes that one wants from a .NET class library:

• provide numpy-like arrays and dtype-like data type objects
• throw Exceptions
• handle C string as easy as .NET string
• manage immutable identifiers under the hood
• there's basic LINQ support

Libraries for C/C++ are officially maintained, but for C# there are no official bindings that feel native to the language. This project builds on the HDF.PInvoke package, which simply wraps the native C routines under the hood. It is therefore just as fast but much nicer to use than the native API:

using (H5File hf = H5File.Open(myfile, mode: "r"))
{
    dset2d<int> DSET = hf.Root["datasets/int2d"] as dset2d<int>;

    foreach (int[] row in DSET.Rows()) 
    {
        int i = row[0];
    }
}

H52O builds with VisualStudio under Windows and also under Linux using msbuild from the mono project.

hdf5 version considerations

The build is currently being unit-tested against hdf5 v1.10. However, hdf5 v1.8 is also supported. In order for this to work, one must define HDF5_VER1_8 in the VisualStudio build options. This takes care of the API changes introduced by the HDF group. Using hdf5 v1.10 allows for using the neat single-write multi-read feature by adding the sw and mr file modes to the H5File class.

license

H52O is licensed under the MIT License. See The HDF Group for licensing the hdf5 binaries.