HDFLS(1)

okay bestie, buckle up 💖 this is hdfls(1) — a page straight outta the General Commands Manual — and she's here to spill all the tea about what's inside your HDF files. no cap, it's giving "underrated utility that eats". let's go ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

hdfls — list basic information about an HDF file 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

hdfls [-o] [-l] [-d] [-v] [-g] [-s] [-h] [-t n] hdf_file

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so basically, hdfls hands you the general tea on your file's tags, reference numbers, and — if you ask nicely — the lengths of the data elements. that's the whole vibe. 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -o — sorts the reference numbers into ascending order, so they're all lined up cute. ✨
• -l — the long format. spills more info about the file than the default. main character energy 👑
• -d — shows the offset and length info for every single element in the file. 🍓
• -v — verbose. shows you the annotation and label text, on top of the format that the -l flag triggers. it's giving "tell me everything" 💀
• -g — Group. lists the items grouped up by group. found family, fr fr 🌈
• -s — Special elements. gives you the detailed 411 on special elements. 🙈
• -d — display offset and length information for each element in the file. (yes bestie, it's listed twice in the original. iconic of it. not a typo on my part, I promise 💅)
• -h — dumps the DD block information. 🦋
• -t n — Tag. only lists info about the one tag you specify. must be followed by a tag number, no skipping, periodt. ⭐

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

okay so imagine a file called "aa.hdf" and it's holding three items associated with a raster image: the image dimensions, a palette, and the raster image itself. to see what's up inside, you run this:

hdfls aa.hdf

and this is what comes back at you:

        aa.hdf:

Image Dimensions-8:                     (Raster-8): (tag 200)

        Ref nos: 1

Image Palette-8:                        (Raster-8): (tag 201)

        Ref nos: 3

Raster Image-8:                 (Raster-8): (tag 202)

        Ref nos: 1

now bestie, watch this — same info, but now with the length of each data element attached:

hdfls -l aa.hdf

and boom, you'd get this:

        aa.hdf:

        Image Dimensions-8:             (Raster-8)      : (tag 200)

        Ref no 1                4 bytes

        Image Palette-8:                (Raster-8)      : (tag 201)

        Ref no 3                768 bytes

        Raster Image-8:         (Raster-8)      : (tag 202)

        Ref no 1                120000 bytes

like, 4 bytes, 768 bytes, 120000 bytes?? the way that raster image is carrying the whole file on its back 😭💜

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• hdf(5)

and that's the whole page, bestie. go forth and hdfls responsibly. 💖

this one's old-school in the best way — it dropped on October 31, 1999, and it lives as page HDFLS(1) in the General Commands Manual. vintage, but make it useful. ✨🎀🦋