Hierarchical Data Format (HDF, HDF4, or HDF5) is a set of file formats and libraries designed to store and organize large amounts of numerical data.
Hierarchical Data Format (HDF, HDF4, or HDF5) is a set of file formats and libraries designed to store and organize large amounts of numerical data.
Originally developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, it is supported by the non-profit HDF Group, whose mission is to ensure continued development of HDF5 technologies, and the continued accessibility of data stored in HDF.
In keeping with this goal, the HDF format, libraries and associated tools are available under a liberal, BSD-like license for general use. HDF is supported by many commercial and non-commercial software platforms, including Java, MATLAB/Scilab, Octave, IDL, Python, and R. The freely available HDF distribution consists of the library, command-line utilities, test suite source, Java interface, and the Java-based HDF Viewer (HDFView).
There are two major versions of HDF; HDF4 and HDF5, which differ significantly in design and API.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_Data_Format
