HDF5 version 1.14.6 released on 2025-02-04
================================================================================


INTRODUCTION
============

This document describes the differences between this release and the previous
HDF5 release. It contains information on the platforms tested and known
problems in this release. For more details check the HISTORY*.txt files in the
HDF5 source.

Note that documentation in the links below will be updated at the time of each
final release.

Links to HDF5 documentation can be found on:

     https://support.hdfgroup.org/releases/hdf5/latest-docs.html

The official HDF5 releases can be obtained from:

     https://support.hdfgroup.org/downloads/index.html

Changes from Release to Release and New Features in the HDF5-1.14.x release series
can be found at:

     https://support.hdfgroup.org/releases/hdf5/documentation/release_specific_info.md

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to the HDF Help Desk:

     help@hdfgroup.org


CONTENTS
========

- New Features
- Support for new platforms and languages
- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.14.5
- Platforms Tested
- Known Problems
- CMake vs. Autotools installations


New Features
============

    Configuration:
    -------------
    - The documentation in the source folder, doc, has been converted to doxygen files.

    - Added support for native zlib-ng compression.

      Changed the zlib-ng CMake logic to prefer the native zlib-ng library. Added
      #ifdef around the compression function calls. Added including the correct
      header file with the same #ifdef.


    Library:
    --------
    -


    Parallel Library:
    -----------------
    -


    Fortran Library:
    ----------------

    -


    C++ Library:
    ------------
    -


    Java Library:
    -------------
    -


    Tools:
    ------
    -


    High-Level APIs:
    ----------------
    -


    C Packet Table API:
    -------------------
    -


    Internal header file:
    ---------------------
    -


    Documentation:
    --------------
    -


Support for new platforms, languages and compilers
==================================================
    -


Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.14.5 release
===================================
    Library
    -------
    - Reverted a change to the library's handling of UTF-8 file names

      A change was made in the HDF5 1.14.4 release to address some issues with 
      the library's handling of code pages and file paths on Windows. This change
      introduced other issues with the handling of UTF-8 file names that caused
      breakage for software using the 1.14.4 and 1.14.5 releases of HDF5.

      The change has been reverted for this release and will be addressed in a
      different manner in a future release.

      If you are using 1.14.4 or 1.14.5 and are happy with how UTF-8 file names
      are handled in those versions, do not update to 1.14.6.

      Reverted commit: eb0351efffe987a9c1882ccc9b03b5b0aec7f2dd


    Java Library
    ------------
    -


    Configuration
    -------------
    - When using a system installed zlib library, the shared library is expected to
      be found in the system library path with the default HDF5_MODULE_MODE_ZLIB 
      setting ON.

      Setting the HDF5_MODULE_MODE_ZLIB option to OFF, the system installed zlib,
      or an alternate installed zlib library, is expected to have a correct
      zlib-config.cmake file.

      Fixes #5155

    - Use pre-installed libaec compression library

      The CMake logic for finding the libaec compression library has been
      modified for a system-installed version of the library. Two options
      must be set;
          HDF5_ALLOW_EXTERNAL_SUPPORT:STRING=NO
          <LIB_PKG_NAME>_USE_EXTERNAL:BOOL=OFF
      where <LIB_PKG_NAME> is one of ZLIB, ZLIBNG, SZIP, PLUGIN.
      Note that HDF5_ALLOW_EXTERNAL_SUPPORT:STRING=NO disables building all
      plugins and external libraries in-line with the HDF5 library.

      In addition, the <LIB_PKG_NAME>_ROOT environment variables must be set,
      where <LIB_PKG_NAME> is one of ZLIB, ZLIBNG, SZIP, libaec, PLUGIN.
      Note that libaec is the expected name for using the libaec library in
      place of original szip.

      See INSTALL_CMake.txt for more detailed information.

    - Removed the module search find_package for szip library
    
      There is not an szip module file to use, so the find_package only uses
      find_package in config mode. The remaining choices are to either build szip 
      with libaec inline, or find a system installed szip library built with CMake.


    Tools
    -----
    -


    Performance
    -------------
    -


    Fortran API
    -----------
    -


    High-Level Library
    ------------------
    -


    Fortran High-Level APIs
    -----------------------
    -


    Documentation
    -------------
    -


    F90 APIs
    --------
    -


    C++ APIs
    --------
    - 


    Testing
    -------
    -


Platforms Tested
===================

    - HDF5 is tested with the latest Linux, macOS and Windows versions that are
      available on GitHub runners, with Clang, GCC and Intel compilers. As new
      major versions become available, HDF5 will discontinue testing the older
      version and add the new latest version to its list of compatible systems,
      along with the previous version.  HDF5 is also tested on the HPC systems
      and older versions listed below.  Test results may be viewed at the
      "test results" link on the top level README page.  
        

    Linux 6.8.0-1010-aws             GNU gcc, gfortran, g++
    #10-Ubuntu SMP 2024 x86_64       (Ubuntu 13.2.0-23ubuntu4) 13.2.0
    GNU/Linux Ubuntu 24.04           Ubuntu clang version 18.1.3 (1ubuntu1)
                                     Intel(R) oneAPI DPC++/C++ Compiler 2024.2.0
                                     ifx (IFX) 2024.2.0 20240602
                                     (cmake and autotools)

    Linux 6.5.0-1018-aws             GNU gcc, gfortran, g++
    #18-Ubuntu SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux  (Ubuntu 11.4.0-1ubuntu1~22.04) 11.4.0
    Ubuntu 22.04                     Ubuntu clang version 14.0.0-1ubuntu1
                                     Intel(R) oneAPI DPC++/C++ Compiler 2024.0.2
                                     ifx (IFX) 2024.0.2 20231213
                                     (cmake and autotools)

    Linux 5.14.21-cray_shasta_c      cray-mpich/8.1.28
    #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux              cce 18.0.1 17.0.1
    (frontier)                           gcc/13.2
                                     (cmake)

    Linux-4.18.0-553.27.1.1toss.t4   openmpi/4.1.2
    #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux              clang 14.0.6
    (corona, dane)                       GCC 12.1.1
                                         Intel(R) oneAPI DPC++/C++ Compiler 2023.2.1
                                         ifx (IFX) 2023.2.1

    Linux 4.14.0-115.35.1.3chaos     spectrum-mpi/rolling-release
    #1 SMP ppc64le GNU/Linux             clang 17.0.6
    (vortex)                             GCC 12.2.1
                                         nvhpc 24.1
                                         XL 2023.06.28
                                     (cmake)

    Linux-4.14.0-115.35.1            spectrum-mpi/rolling-release
    #1 SMP ppc64le GNU/Linux             clang 17.0.6, 18.1.8
    (lassen)                             GCC 12.2.1
                                         XL 2023.06.28, 2022.08.19
                                     (cmake)

    Windows 10 x64                  Visual Studio 2019 w/ clang 12.0.0
                                        with MSVC-like command-line (C/C++ only - cmake)
                                    Visual Studio 2019 w/ Intel (C/C++ only - cmake)
                                    Visual Studio 2022 w/ clang 17.0.3
                                        with MSVC-like command-line (C/C++ only - cmake)
                                    Visual Studio 2022 w/ Intel C/C++ oneAPI 2023 (cmake)
                                    Visual Studio 2019 w/ MSMPI 10.1 (C only - cmake)


Known Problems
==============

 -  HDF5 compiled with Cray/CCE 18.0.1 fails these Fortran tests:
        FORTRAN_fortranlib_test_F03
        FORTRAN_testhdf5_fortran_1_8
        HL_FORTRAN_f90_tstlite
        MPI_TEST_FORT_async_test

    See https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5/issues/5283

 -  When building with the NAG Fortran compiler using the Autotools and libtool
    2.4.2 or earlier, the -shared flag will be missing '-Wl,', which will cause
    compilation to fail. This is due to a bug in libtool that was fixed in 2012
    and released in 2.4.4 in 2014.

 -  When the library detects and builds in support for the _Float16 datatype, an
    issue has been observed on at least one MacOS 14 system where the library
    fails to initialize due to not being able to detect the byte order of the
    _Float16 type (https://github.com/HDFGroup/hdf5/issues/4310):

        #5: H5Tinit_float.c line 308 in H5T__fix_order(): failed to detect byte order
        major: Datatype
        minor: Unable to initialize object

    If this issue is encountered, support for the _Float16 type can be disabled
    with a configuration option:

        CMake:      HDF5_ENABLE_NONSTANDARD_FEATURE_FLOAT16=OFF
        Autotools:  --disable-nonstandard-feature-float16

 -  When HDF5 is compiled with NVHPC versions 23.5 - 23.9 (additional versions may
    also be applicable) and with -O2 (or higher) and -DNDEBUG, test failures occur
    in the following tests:

        H5PLUGIN-filter_plugin
        H5TEST-flush2
        H5TEST-testhdf5-base
        MPI_TEST_t_filters_parallel

    Sporadic failures (even with lower -O levels):
        Java JUnit-TestH5Pfapl
        Java JUnit-TestH5D

    Also, NVHPC will fail to compile the test/tselect.c test file with a compiler
    error of 'use of undefined value' when the optimization level is -O2 or higher.

    This is confirmed to be a bug in the nvc compiler that has been fixed as of
    23.11. If you are using an affected version of the NVidia compiler, the
    work-around is to set the optimization level to -O1.

    https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/hdf5-no-longer-compiles-with-nv-23-9/269045

 -  CMake files do not behave correctly with paths containing spaces.
    Do not use spaces in paths because the required escaping for handling spaces
    results in very complex and fragile build files.

 -  At present, metadata cache images may not be generated by parallel
    applications. Parallel applications can read files with metadata cache
    images, but since this is a collective operation, a deadlock is possible
    if one or more processes do not participate.

 -  The subsetting option in ph5diff currently will fail and should be avoided.
    The subsetting option works correctly in serial h5diff.

 -  Flang Fortran compilation will fail (last check version 17) due to not yet
    implemented: (1) derived type argument passed by value (H5VLff.F90),
    and (2) support for REAL with KIND = 2 in intrinsic SPACING used in testing.

 -  Fortran tests HDF5_1_8.F90 and HDF5_F03.F90 will fail with Cray compilers
    greater than version 16.0 due to a compiler bug. The latest version verified
    as failing was version 17.0.

 -  Several tests currently fail on certain platforms:
        MPI_TEST-t_bigio fails with spectrum-mpi on ppc64le platforms.

 -  File space may not be released when overwriting or deleting certain nested
    variable length or reference types.

 -  Known problems in previous releases can be found in the HISTORY*.txt files
    in the HDF5 source. Please report any new problems found to
    help@hdfgroup.org.


CMake vs. Autotools installations
=================================
While both build systems produce similar results, there are differences.
Each system produces the same set of folders on Linux (only CMake works
on standard Windows); bin, include, lib and share. Autotools places the
COPYING and RELEASE.txt file in the root folder, CMake places them in
the share folder.

The bin folder contains the tools and the build scripts. Additionally, CMake
creates dynamic versions of the tools with the suffix "-shared". Autotools
installs one set of tools depending on the "--enable-shared" configuration
option.
  build scripts
  -------------
  Autotools: h5c++, h5cc, h5fc
  CMake: h5c++, h5cc, h5hlc++, h5hlcc

The include folder holds the header files and the fortran mod files. CMake
places the fortran mod files into separate shared and static subfolders,
while Autotools places one set of mod files into the include folder. Because
CMake produces a tools library, the header files for tools will appear in
the include folder.

The lib folder contains the library files, and CMake adds the pkgconfig
subfolder with the hdf5*.pc files used by the bin/build scripts created by
the CMake build. CMake separates the C interface code from the fortran code by
creating C-stub libraries for each Fortran library. In addition, only CMake
installs the tools library. The names of the szip libraries are different
between the build systems.

The share folder will have the most differences because CMake builds include
a number of CMake specific files for support of CMake's find_package and support
for the HDF5 Examples CMake project.

The issues with the gif tool are:
    HDFFV-10592 CVE-2018-17433
    HDFFV-10593 CVE-2018-17436
    HDFFV-11048 CVE-2020-10809
These CVE issues have not yet been addressed and are avoided by not building
the gif tool by default. Enable building the High-Level tools with these options:
    autotools:   --enable-hlgiftools
    cmake:       HDF5_BUILD_HL_GIF_TOOLS=ON
