Re: [h5md-user] Species Data Type

[Pierre de Buyl]

Hi all,

Peter Colberg <address@hidden> a écrit :

> Hi Nicolas,
>
> On Tue, Aug 06, 2013 at 08:58:51PM +0200, Nicolas Höft wrote:
> > Is it possible to read/write an enum type as int type? What I mean
> > is: Is this backwards-compatible? Can a program that does not know
> > about HDF5 enums simply read the int's and continue as usual?
> >
> > I really like the solution, though :-)
>
> It is compatible with readers expecting an integer data type. An
> enumerated-type dataset can be read using, e.g., H5T_NATIVE_INT as
> the memory datatype.
>
> For writing, however, the memory datatype needs to be an enumerated
> type. A program extending an existing enumerated-type dataset needs
> to be aware of this.

Enums seem a very elegant solution. However, nothing prevents their
use in the specification and the change would be backward compatible
in the future.

Suggesting their use would fit in the implementation appendix very
well (see http://nongnu.org/h5md/implementation.html ).

Cheers,

Pierre