[FLASH-BUGS] FLASH4.5 and HDF5 1.8.16

[Klaus Weide]

[ cross-posting response to flash-users ]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2017, Dominik Derigs wrote:

> Dear FLASH team,
> 
> the CHANGELOG states
> 
> > FLASH now works correctly with HDF5 versions 1.10.x.
> 
> I guessed that means that it should "just" work without having to use
> -DH5_USE_16_API as compiler flag in my Makefile also with v1.8.16.

Hi Dominik,

The -DH5_USE_16_API is still necessary to compile FLASH against an HDF5 
library with version > 1.6.  (Unless one has an HDF5 library specifically
built to default to the old API version - I assume not many users are
in that situation.)

And yes, that is still H5_USE_16_API, not H5_USE_18_API.

What is new in FLASH 4.5, and what the line in RELEASE-NOTES is meant to 
convey, is that the same mechanism needed to compile FLASH against HDF5 
1.8.x now also works for 1.10.x.  Before this, i.e., with FLASH 4.4,
it did not work for 1.10.x. This has come up on flash-users ca. October 
2017.

Please let us know if you find any problems when you DO use H5_USE_16_API !

> However, if I remove this flag, I'm still getting issues like
> 
> io_h5_attribute.c(48): error #165: too few arguments in function call
>       dsetID = H5Dopen(hFileID, datasetName);
> 
> and so forth.

Yes, that is as expected.

> I looked into FLASH's user guide for the most recent version and haven't
> found any details regarding this issue. Do I have to add another flag
> somewhere or does the version of FLASH really works now only with HDF5
> v1.10.x but not with v1.8.x?

If you have a suggestion for improving the U.G. to make this clearer,
please let me know!

And to iterate, HDF5 v1.10.x should now be treated the same way as v1.8.x, 
as far as configuring FLASH is concerned.

Klaus