Re: [h5md-user] box and observables

[Peter Colberg]

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 10:27:28AM +0200, Felix Höfling wrote:
> From the point of view of a single subgroup, this is
> easy, the time grids are congruent, and the information is complete.

This is not the case.

The data within a subgroup can be sampled at different time grids.

As noted again and again (indicating that the specification is not
explicit enough as to the use of "time" and "step" datasets), a reader
must lookup the "value" index corresponding to a time/step in the
"time" or "step" dataset, for any value dataset.

As an optimization, a reader can check if two time/step datasets point
to the same HDF5 object (i.e. they are hard-linked); then, and only
then, can the time/step information be reused for multiple value
datasets.

(Since I am mentioning this so often, it would be my task to point
this out in the specification…)

Peter