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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

h5lite 2.2.0.0

  • Works with hdf5lib 2.2.0.0 and 2.2.0.1. Some fixes take effect only when h5lite is built with hdf5lib 2.2.0.1 or later; they are listed under “With hdf5lib 2.2.0.1” below.
  • New h5_threads() sets how many threads h5lite uses for parallel work, currently the Blosc and Blosc2 codecs. The H5LITE_NTHREADS environment variable sets the default. Threads need hdf5lib 2.2.0.1 or later.

Crashes and data loss

  • Fixed an R crash when a partial read of variable-length strings failed (e.g. a fractional start). start and count must now be whole numbers.
  • Fixed writing a data frame with a matrix column reading past the end of its other columns. Matrix columns, columns of the wrong length, and duplicate or empty column names are now errors.
  • An R error raised mid-call no longer leaves the HDF5 file open (and, on Windows, locked) for the rest of the session. Strings marked with "bytes" encoding are now rejected before writing starts.
  • A compression filter that rejects data when a dataset is closed (as HDF5 flushes its chunk cache) is now an error, and the incomplete dataset is removed. Previously HDF5 dropped the chunk silently.
  • h5_move() no longer deletes a group moved into itself (e.g. "g" to "g/sub"); this is now an error.
  • Dimension scales (the datasets holding names, dimnames, and row.names) are now kept consistent: h5_move() moves a dataset’s scales with it, h5_delete() and overwriting delete them with it (scales not named after the dataset, such as netCDF coordinate variables, are detached but kept), deleting a scale detaches it, and writing a scale never overwrites an unrelated object (previously, writing x replaced anything named x_names, and could rewrite the names of a moved dataset).
  • h5_write(list, file, name, attr = ...) no longer replaces the dataset name with a group; lists can’t be written as attributes.
  • List elements without unique, non-empty names are now an error instead of being dropped (or, for list(a = 1, 2), deleting the group).
  • Overwriting a group with a list now writes the new group in full before removing the old one, so a failure leaves the original intact.
  • POSIXct times are now stored in UTC (previously local times were labelled Z), with fractional seconds. POSIXlt is now written like POSIXct instead of as an empty group.
  • Fixed-length strings that fill their full width now keep their last character when read from files that pad with nulls or spaces (as h5py does).
  • utf8[n] and fixed-length strings are no longer truncated in the middle of a multibyte character, and their width is measured in UTF-8 bytes.
  • as = "ascii" now transliterates every string, not just the first.
  • Values outside the range of the requested type (e.g. 70000 as float16, 2^63 as int64) are now an error instead of becoming Inf or wrapping around.
  • blosc2_truncate no longer corrupts 32- and 64-bit integers, including those in data frames (it zeroed their low bits: with blosc2_truncate = 10, every int32 below 8192 read back as 0), or turns NA into NaN or Inf. It now applies only to float32 and float64 data without NA or NaN.
  • int64 NA values now read back as NA instead of -9.22e18, and uint64 values above the int64 range read with as = "bit64" become NA (with a warning) instead of being clamped.

Other fixes

  • Enum values with no matching member, and attributes named like R’s structural attributes (dim, class, …), no longer produce malformed or reshaped results. Factors with empty-string levels can no longer be written.
  • Reading a NULL dataset that has attributes no longer errors.
  • Lists can be written to the root group (h5_write(list, file, "/"), h5$write(list)).
  • h5_create_file() and h5_open() now work on read-only files.
  • as fixes: an unnamed as (or non-@ key) no longer applies to attributes when writing; as is now honored for factors (which can be stored as strings, e.g. as = c(grade = "ascii[1]")), raw, complex, integer64, NULL, and nested lists; "skip" and "null" must be spelled out rather than abbreviated; type-class keys like .int only match numeric data when reading; "auto" keeps the automatic type; attributes read or written directly accept plain or @ keys; and "null" drops data frame columns when reading.
  • A multi-value start on a data frame is now an error, and start/count on a group apply to each of its datasets.
  • h5_length() returns 0 for NULL datasets and attributes.
  • h5_ls() and h5_names() (for groups) now return names in the order sort() puts them, instead of an arbitrary order, and full.names = TRUE returns absolute paths. h5_read() on a group and h5_str() now follow the order objects were created (in files written by this version; name order otherwise), so lists read back in the order they were written.
  • h5_str() shows names longer than 255 bytes, and h5_str() and h5_attr_names() no longer show HDF5’s DIMENSION_LIST/REFERENCE_LIST attributes.
  • Object names longer than 260 bytes no longer make h5_write() and h5_read() fail on Windows with older versions of R (such as R 4.2), and as keys now match an object named ~. Both came from R’s basename(), which is meant for file paths.
  • HDF5’s internal error stack is no longer printed before h5lite’s error messages.
  • h5_open() handle methods now accept the same arguments as the corresponding functions (e.g. h5$read(name, start, count)), ".." works in absolute paths, and a relative file path keeps working after setwd().
  • I() around a length-one POSIXct now writes a scalar, and its warning for longer objects appears once.
  • h5_inspect() reports filter parameters as non-negative numbers.

Compression

  • Fixed Blosc codecs without a level of their own ("blosc1", "blosc2", "blosc2-ndlz", "blosc1-snappy", standard "blosc*-lz4") and "blosc2-zfp-acc-*" storing data uncompressed.
  • "blosc1-gzip" and "blosc2-gzip" now use Blosc instead of plain gzip.
  • ZFP and float_rounding no longer corrupt NA, NaN, or Inf: ZFP falls back to gzip and float_rounding is skipped for data containing them.
  • print(h5_inspect()) reads Blosc2’s settings in the new layout as well as those written by earlier versions (including the blosc2_truncate bits of 1-D datasets and of negative settings) and by other software, lists the pre-filters in the order they run (truncation, delta, shuffle), and shows when Blosc2’s ZFP codecs declined a dataset.
  • blosc2_delta and blosc2_truncate are no longer passed to "blosc2-ndlz" and "blosc2-zfp-...", which never ran them. print(h5_inspect()) listed them anyway, and blosc2_truncate = 8 made NDLZ use 8x8 cells. print(h5_compression("blosc2-ndlz")) no longer claims a bitshuffle.
  • blosc2_truncate must be between -51 and 52, and not 0. A setting that keeps no bits or drops a whole mantissa used to leave the data uncompressed. For float32 data, settings that would drop 23 bits or more are skipped.
  • "lz4-[level]" now passes the requested LZ4-HC level instead of always using level 9.
  • A ZFP tolerance or rate of 0 (e.g. "blosc2-zfp-acc-0", which silently used a tolerance of 1) is now an error.
  • float_rounding on float16 or bfloat16 data no longer makes the write fail; HDF5’s Scale-Offset filter can’t handle them, so it is skipped.
  • compress = "none" no longer chunks or shuffles the data, and compress = TRUE now selects gzip instead of no compression.
  • Unsupported data with "blosc2-zfp-*" now falls back to the default shuffle + gzip pipeline.
  • Standalone ZFP ("zfp-...") now falls back to the default shuffle + gzip pipeline for data whose chunks have no dimension longer than one (e.g. a single value) or more than four, which ZFP can’t compress. The write used to fail.
  • h5_inspect() no longer prints large chunk dimensions in scientific notation.
  • Reorganized the vignettes; vignette('compression') now covers every bundled codec, lossy compression, sharing files with other software, and chunk tuning.

With hdf5lib 2.2.0.1

These take effect when h5lite is built with hdf5lib 2.2.0.1 or later.

  • Blosc and Blosc2 use the threads set by h5_threads().
  • Blosc2 datasets are stored in hdf5lib’s new parameter layout, which keeps the reference HDF5-Blosc2 filter’s values in its slots and packs the pre-filters and blosc2_truncate bits into the first. So hdf5plugin describes them by their last pre-filter, h5py can append to them, and h5py can read 1-D Blosc2 datasets. hdf5plugin used to read the pre-filter bitmask h5lite recorded as a single filter code, which isn’t a valid one with blosc2_delta or blosc2_truncate. 1-D Blosc2 datasets written earlier can’t be read by h5py until they are rewritten.
  • "blosc2-zfp-..." now compresses arrays of more than four dimensions, and chunks with a dimension shorter than 4, which it used to store uncompressed. Data of fewer than four values is stored uncompressed, and print(h5_inspect()) shows e.g. blosc2 [zfp-acc] (declined: stored uncompressed).
  • Blosc2 now compresses matrices and arrays after int_packing or float_rounding. It used to refuse every chunk with two or more dimensions after Scale-Offset, leaving them packed but otherwise uncompressed.
  • "snappy" datasets are written in the block layout of snappy-cuda, the filter registered for Snappy’s HDF5 filter ID. h5lite built with hdf5lib 2.2.0.0 or earlier can’t read them; older ones can still be read.
  • Datasets compressed with SZ3 (filter 32024) can be read when an SZ3 plugin is on HDF5_PLUGIN_PATH. hdf5lib’s read-only BitRound shim claimed SZ3’s ID, which made them unreadable; it now uses BitRound’s own, 32032, which h5_inspect() names bitround.

h5lite 2.1.1.1

CRAN release: 2026-05-18

  • Fixed warnings introduced by GCC 16: ‘%d’ directive output may be truncated in utils.c.

h5lite 2.1.1.0

CRAN release: 2026-04-18

h5lite 2.0.0.2

CRAN release: 2026-01-29

  • Initial CRAN submission.