How is HDF5 different from a folder with files?

Question

I\'m working on an open source project dealing with adding metadata to folders. The provided (Python) API lets you browse and access metadata like it was just another folder. Be

Answer 1

Yes, the main advantage is that HDF5 is portable. HDF5 files can be accessed by a host of other programming/interpreting languages, such as Python (which your API is built on), MATLAB, Fortran and C. As Simon suggested, HDF5 is used extensively in the scientific community to store large datasets. In my experience, I find the ability to retrieve only certain datasets (and regions) useful. In addition, the building the HDF5 library for parallel I/O is very advantageous for post-processing of raw data at a later time.

Since the file is also self-describing, it is capable of storing not just raw data, but also description of that data, such as the array size, array name, units and a host of additional metadata.

Hope this helps.