h4fromh5(1)

✨ h4fromh5 — like, the manual page bestie 💖

okay so you found h4fromh5(1) in your man pages and you're like "what is this" — don't worry, I got you. this one's a lil translator between two scientific data formats and honestly? she's iconic. let's get into it 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

h4fromh5 — converts an HDF5 scientific dataset into an HDF4 file. glow-up but for data 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

h4fromh5 [OPTIONS] [HDF5-FILES]

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

so h4fromh5 takes one or more files in HDF5 format and outputs files in HDF4 format, and those output files contain the datasets from the HDF5 files. that's the whole vibe. (currently, only a single dataset per HDF5 file gets converted — she's doing one at a time, okay, she's pacing herself ✨)

HDF4 and HDF5 are free, portable binary formats, and they come with supporting libraries developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. like, actual academic royalty 🎀

here's the tea tho: a single h5 file can contain multiple data sets. by default, h4fromh5 converts the first dataset — but you can change that with the -d option, or by using the syntax HDF5FILE:DATASET. choose your own adventure, bestie 🦋

the most basic usage is something like h4fromh5 foo.h5, which will output a file foo.hdf containing the scientific dataset from foo.h5. yes it's that easy. no cap 💖

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -h — display help on the command-line options and usage. she's helpful like that 🌸
• -V — print the version number and copyright info for h4fromh5. ✨
• -v — verbose output. she will literally tell you everything 💀
• -T — transpose the output dataset (so LxMxN becomes NxMxL). this is often useful because HDF5 programs typically follow C (row-major) conventions, while HDF4 programs often follow Fortran (column-major, transposed) conventions for array ordering. so like, she's doing a lil flip for you, no big deal 🙈
• -o file — send HDF output to file rather than to the input filename with .h5 replaced with .hdf (that replacement is the default). custom filename, main character energy 👑
• -d name — read from dataset name in the input; otherwise, the first dataset in the input file is used. alternatively, use the syntax HDF5FILE:DATASET when the input file names are specified. pick your fighter 🧚

💀 BUGS 💀

send bug reports to S. G. Johnson, stevenj@alum.mit.edu. she's listening, fr fr 😭

🥹 AUTHORS 🥹

Written by Steven G. Johnson. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. respect the founder 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie!! go forth and convert your datasets, you're literally gonna slay 🌈⭐

signing off from h4fromh5(1) — dated 22 May 2016, and yes, this is the manual page for h4fromh5, section 1, the one and only 💜✨