HDF5 version 1.8.7 released on Tue May 10 09:24:44 CDT 2011
================================================================================

INTRODUCTION 
============

This document describes the differences between HDF5-1.8.6 and 
HDF5 1.8.7, and contains information on the platforms tested and 
known problems in HDF5-1.8.7. 
For more details, see the files HISTORY-1_0-1_8_0_rc3.txt 
and HISTORY-1_8.txt in the release_docs/ directory of the HDF5 source.

Links to the HDF5 1.8.7 source code, documentation, and additional materials
can be found on the HDF5 web page at:

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/products/hdf5/

The HDF5 1.8.7 release can be obtained from:

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/release/obtain5.html

User documentation for 1.8.7 can be accessed directly at this location: 

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/

New features in the HDF5-1.8.x release series, including brief general 
descriptions of some new and modified APIs, are described in the "What's New 
in 1.8.0?" document:

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/WhatsNew180.html

All new and modified APIs are listed in detail in the "HDF5 Software Changes 
from Release to Release" document, in the section "Release 1.8.7 (current 
release) versus Release 1.8.6":

     http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/ADGuide/Changes.html

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to the HDF Help Desk:

     help@hdfgroup.org


CONTENTS
========

- New Features
- Support for New Platforms, Languages, and Compilers
- Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.8.6
- Platforms Tested
- Supported Configuration Features Summary
- Known Problems


New Features
============

    Configuration
    -------------
    - Configure now generates Makefiles that build in "silent make mode"
      by default in which compile and link lines are significantly
      simplified for clarity. To override this and view actual compile and
      link lines during building, the --disable-silent-rules flag can be used
      at configure time, or the 'make' command can be followed by V=1, to
      indicate a "verbose" make. (MAM - 2011/4/14).
    - Added mpicc and mpif90 as the default C and Fortran compilers for Linux
      systems when --enable-parallel is specified but no $CC or $FC is defined.
      (AKC - 2011/2/7)
    - Added a new configure option, "--enable-unsupported", which can
      be used to stop configure from preventing the use of unsupported
      configure option combinations, such as c++ in parallel or Fortran
      with threadsafe. Use at your own risk, as it may result in a 
      library that won't compile or run as expected!
      (MAM - 2010/11/17 - Bug 2061)

    Library
    -------
    - The library allows the dimension size of a dataspace to be zero.  In 
      the past, the library would allow this only if the maximal dimension 
      size was unlimited. Now there is no such restriction, but no data 
      can be written to this kind of dataset. (SLU - 2011/4/20)
    - We added two new macros, H5_VERSION_GE and H5_VERSION_LE, to let users
      compare certain version numbers with the library being used. (SLU -
      2011/4/20) 
    - Added ability to cache files opened through external links.  Added new
      public functions H5Pset_elink_file_cache_size(),
      H5Pget_elink_file_cache_size(), and H5Fclear_elink_file_cache().
      (NAF - 2011/02/17)
    - Finished implementing all options for 'log' VFD.  (QAK - 2011/1/25)
    - Removed all old code for Metrowerks compilers, bracketed by
      __MWERKS__). Metrowerks compiler is long gone. (AKC - 2010/11/17) 

    Parallel Library
    ----------------
    - None
 
    Tools
    -----
     - h5diff: Added new "verbose with levels" option, '-vN, --verbose=N'.
       The old '-v, --verbose' option is deprecated but remains available;
       it is exactly equivalent to '-v0, --verbose=0'.
       The new levels 1 ('-v1' or '--verbose=1') and 2 ('-v2' or 
       '--verbose=2') can be specified to view more information regarding 
       attributes differences.  Bug #2121 (JKM 2011/3/23)
     - h5dump: Added new option --enable-error-stack. This option will 
       display error stack information in the output stream. This is 
       useful when the "h5dump: Unable to print data" message is output.
       (ADB - 2011/03/03)

    High-Level APIs
    ---------------
    - Fortran LT make datasets routines (H5LTmake_dataset_f, 
      h5ltmake_dataset_int_f, h5ltmake_dataset_float_f, h5ltmake_dataset_double_f) 
      and LT read datasets routines (h5ltread_dataset_f,h5ltread_dataset_int_f,
      h5ltread_dataset_float_f, 5ltread_dataset_double_f) can now handle 
      4-dimensional to 7-dimensional rank datasets. HDFFV-1217 (MSB-2011/4/24/2011)

    F90 API
    -------
     - None

    C++ API
    -------
    - None


Support for New Platforms, Languages, and Compilers
===================================================
    - Intel V11.1 uses now -O3 optimization in production mode (EIP - 2010/10/08)
             


Bug Fixes since HDF5-1.8.6
==========================

    Configuration
    -------------
    - Shared C++ and HL libraries on AIX should now be working correctly.
      Note that Fortran shared libraries are still not working on AIX. 
      (See the Known Problems section, below). (MAM - 2011/4/20)
    - Removed config/ibm-aix6.x. All IBM-AIX settings are in one file,
      ibm-aix. (AKC - 2011/4/14)
    - Shared C libraries are no longer disabled on Mac when Fortran
      is enabled. Shared Fortran libraries are still not supported on Mac,
      so configure will disable them by default, but this is overrideable
      with the new --enable-unsupported configure option. The configure
      summary has been updated to reflect the fact that the shared-ness of 
      the C++/Fortran wrapper libraries may not align with the C library.
      (MAM - 2011/04/11 - HDFFV-4353).

    Library
    -------
    - Changed assertion failure when decoding a compound datatype with no
      fields into a normal error failure.  Also prohibit using this sort
      of datatype for creating an attribute (as is already the case for
      datasets and committed (named) datatypes).  (QAK - 2011/04/15, Jira 
      issue #HDFFV-2766)
    - Tell the VFL flush call that the file will be closing, allowing
      the VFDs to avoid sync'ing the file (particularly valuable in parallel).
      (QAK - 2011/03/09)
    - The datatype handler created with H5Tencode/decode used to have the 
      reference count 0 (zero); it now has the reference count 1 (one).
      (SLU - 2011/2/18)
    - Fixed the definition of H5_HAVE_GETTIMEOFDAY on Windows so that
      HDgettimeofday() is defined and works properly.  Bug HDFFV-5931
      (DER - 2011/04/14)
    - Added basic VFD tests for the Windows, STDIO and log VFD tests.
      (DER - 2011/04/11)

    Parallel Library
    ----------------
    - None

    Tools
    -----
    - Updated h5dump test case script to prevent entire test failure when 
      source directory is read-only. Bug #HDFFV-4342 (JKM 2011/4/12)
    - Fixed h5dump displaying incorrect values for H5T_STD_I8BE type data in
      attribute on Big-Endian machine. H5T_STD_I8BE is unsigned 8bit type,
      so h5dump is supposed to display -2 instead of 254. It worked correctly
      on Little-Endian system , but not on Big-Endian system.  Bug #HDFFV-4358
      (JKM 04/08/2011)
    - Updated some HDF5 tools to standardize the option name as 
      '--enable-error-stack' for printing HDF5 error stack messages. h5ls and 
      h5dump have been updated. For h5ls, this replaces "-e/--errors" option, 
      which is deprecated. For h5dump, this is a new option. Bug #2182 
      (JKM 2011/3/30)
    - Fixed the h5diff --use-system-epsilon option. The formula used in the 
      calculation was changed from ( |a - b| / b ) to ( |a - b| ). 
      This was done to improve performance. Bug #2184 (JKM 2011/3/24)
    - Fixed output for H5T_REFERENCE in h5dump. According to the BNF document
      the output of a H5T_REFERENCE should be followed by the type;
      <reference> ::= H5T_REFERENCE { <ref_type> }
      <ref_type> ::= H5T_STD_REF_OBJECT | H5T_STD_REF_DSETREG
      Previously this was only displayed if the -R option was used.
      Bug #1725 (ADB 2011/3/28)
    - Fixed two h5diff issues. 1) h5diff compared attributes correctly only 
      when two objects had the same number of attributes and the attribute 
      names were identical. 2) h5diff did not display useful information about 
      attribute differences. Bug #2121 (JKM 2011/3/17)
    - Fixed a memory leak in h5diff that occurred when accessing symbolic links 
      with the --follow-symlink option. Bug #2214  (JKM 2011/3/18)
    - Fixed a memory leak in h5diff that occurred when accessing variable length 
      string data. Bug #2216 (JKM 2011/3/18)
    - Fixed and improved the help page for h5ls -a, --address option. 
      Bug #1904 (JKM 2011/3/11)
    - Fixed h5copy to enable copying an object into the same HDF5 file.
      Previously h5copy displayed an error message when the target file 
      was the same as the source file. (XCAO 2011/3/8)
    - Fixed an h5dump problem that caused the tool to skip some data elements 
      in large datasets with a large array datatype on Windows. This issue 
      arose only on Windows due to the different return behavior of the 
      _vsnprintf() function.  Bug #2161 (JKM 2011/3/3)
    - Fixed h5dump which was skipping some array indices in large datasets 
      with a relatively large array datatype. The interval of skipped indices
      varied according to the size of the array. Bug #2092 (JKM 2011/2/15)
    - Fixed h5diff which was segfaulting when comparing compound datasets
      with a combination of fixed-length string datatypes and variable-length
      string datatypes in certain orders. Bug #2089 (JKM 2010/12/28)
    - Improved h5diff performance. 1) Now use HDmemcmp() before comparing two 
      elements. 2) Replace expensive H5Tequals() calls. 3) Retrieve datatype
      information at dataset level, not at each element level for compound 
      datasets. HDFFV-7516 (JKM 2011/4/18) 
    - Fixed h5ls to display nested compound types with curly brackets 
      when -S (--simple) option is used with -l (--label), so it shows  
      which members (in curly brackets) belong to which nested compound type, 
      making the output clearer.  Bug #1979 (JKM 2010/11/09)
    - Fixed h5diff to handle variable-length strings in a compound dataset 
      and variable-length string arrays in a compound dataset correctly.
      Garbage values were previously displayed when h5diff compared multiple 
      variable-length strings in a compound type dataset. 
      Bug #1989 (JKM 2010/10/28)
    - Fixed h5copy to fail gracefully when copying an object to a non-
      existing group without the -p option. Bug #2040 (JKM 2010/10/18)

    F90 API
    ------
    - None

    C++ API
    ------
    - None

    High-Level APIs:
    ------
    - None

    Fortran High-Level APIs:
    ------
    -  h5tbmake_table_f: Fixed error in passing an array of characters with different 
       length field names.
    -  h5tget_field_info_f: Fixed error with packing the C strings into a Fortran 
       array of strings. Added optional argument called 'maxlen_out' which returns 
       the maximum string character length in a field name element.
       Bug HDFFV-1255 (MSB- 4/17/2011)




Platforms Tested
================
The following platforms and compilers have been tested for this release.

    AIX 6.1                       xlc 11.1.0.3
    (NCSA BP)                     xlC 11.1.0.3
                                  xlf90 13.1.0.3
                                  mpcc_r 11.1.0.3
                                  mpxlf90_r 13.1.0.3

    FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE i386       gcc 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
    (loyalty)                     g++ 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
                                  gcc 4.6.1 20110422
                                  g++ 4.6.1 20110422
                                  gfortran 4.6.1 20110422

    FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE amd64      gcc 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
    (freedom)                     g++ 4.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20070719
                                  gcc 4.6.1 20110422
                                  g++ 4.6.1 20110422
                                  gfortran 4.6.1 20110422

    Linux 2.6.18-194.3.1.el5PAE   gcc (GCC) 4.1.2 and 4.4.2
    #1 SMP i686 i686 i386         G95 (GCC 4.0.3 (g95 0.93!) Apr 21 2010)
    (jam)                         GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.1.2 20080704 
                                      (Red Hat 4.1.2-48) and 4.4.2
                                  PGI C, Fortran, C++ 10.4-0 32-bit
                                  PGI C, Fortran, C++ 10.6-0 32-bit
                                  Intel(R) C Compiler for 32-bit
                                      applications, Version 11.1 
                                  Intel(R) C++ Compiler for 32-bit
                                      applications, Version 11.1
                                  Intel(R) Fortran Compiler for 32-bit
                                      applications, Version 11.1
                                  Absoft 32-bit Fortran 95 10.0.7
                                  MPICH mpich2-1.3.1 compiled with
                                      gcc 4.1.2 and gfortran 4.1.2

    Linux 2.6.18-194.17.1.el5     gcc 4.1.2 and 4.4.2
    #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux       G95 (GCC 4.0.3 (g95 0.93!) Apr 21 2010)
    (amani)                           tested for both 32- and 64-bit binaries
                                  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.1.2 20080704
                                      (Red Hat 4.1.2-46) and 4.4.2
                                  Intel(R) C, C++, Fortran Compilers for 
                                      applications running on Intel(R) 64, 
                                      Version 11.1.
                                  PGI C, Fortran, C++ Version 9.0-4
                                      for 64-bit target on x86-64
                                  MPICH mpich2-1.3.1 compiled with
                                      gcc 4.1.2 and gfortran 4.1.2

    SGI ProPack 7 Linux           Intel(R) C++ Version 11.1 20100806
    2.6.32.24-0.2.1.2230.2.PTF-   Intel(R) Fortran Version 11.1 20100806
    default #1 SMP                SGI MPT 2.01
    SGI Altix UV
    (NCSA ember)

    SunOS 5.10 32- and 64-bit     Sun C 5.9 Sun OS_sparc Patch 124867-16
    (linew)                       Sun Fortran 95 8.3 Sun OS_sparc Patch 127000-13
                                  Sun C++ 5.9 Sun OS_sparc Patch 124863-26
                                  Sun C 5.10 SunOS_sparc Patch 141861-07
                                  Sun Fortran 95 8.4 SunOS_sparc Patch 128231-06
                                  Sun C++ 5.10 SunOS_sparc 128228-11

    Intel Xeon Linux 2.6.18-      gcc 4.2.4
    92.1.10.el5_lustre.1.6.6smp-  Intel(R) C++ Version 10.1.017
    perfctr #8 SMP                Intel(R) Fortran Compiler Version 10.1.017
    (NCSA abe)                    Open MPI 1.3.2
                                  MVAPICH2-1.5.1_pgi-10.8

    Windows XP                    Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 10.1 (project files)
                                  Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)
                                  Visual Studio 2010 (cmake)
                                  Cygwin(1.7.7 native gcc(4.3.4) compiler and gfortran)

    Windows XP x64                Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 10.1 (project files)
                                  Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)
                                  Visual Studio 2010 (cmake)
                                  Cygwin(1.7.7 native gcc(4.3.4) compiler and gfortran)

    Windows Vista                 Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)

    Windows Vista x64             Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)

    Windows 7                     Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)

    Windows 7 x64                 Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 11.1 (cmake)

    Mac OS X 10.7.0 (Intel 64-bit) i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1
    Darwin Kernel Version 10.7.0  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.6.0 20101106 (experimental)
                                  Intel C, C++ and Fortran compilers 12.0.1.122 20101110

    Mac OS X 10.7.0 (Intel 32-bit) i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)
    Darwin Kernel Version 10.7.0  GNU Fortran (GCC) version 4.4.0 20090123 (experimental) 
							[trunk revision 143587]

    Fedora 12 2.6.32.16-150.fc12.ppc64 #1 SMP ppc64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (GCC) 4.4.4 20100630 (Red Hat 4.4.4-10)
                                  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.4.4 20100630 (Red Hat 4.4.4-10)

    Debian6.01 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP i686 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5
                                  GNU Fortran (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5

    Debian6.01 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5
                                  GNU Fortran (Debian 4.4.5-8) 4.4.5

    Fedora14 2.6.35.12-88.fc14.i686.PAE #1 SMP i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (GCC) 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4)
                                  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4)

    Fedora14 2.6.35.12-88.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (GCC) 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4)
                                  GNU Fortran (GCC) 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4)

    SUSE 11.4 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (SUSE Linux) 4.5.1 20101208
                                  GNU Fortran (SUSE Linux) 4.5.1 20101208

    SUSE 11.4 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (SUSE Linux) 4.5.1 20101208
                                  GNU Fortran (SUSE Linux) 4.5.1 20101208

    Ubuntu 10.10 2.6.35-28-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP i686 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-14ubuntu5) 4.4.5
                                  GNU Fortran (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-14ubuntu5) 4.4.5

    Ubuntu 10.10 2.6.35-28-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux
                                  gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-14ubuntu5) 4.4.5
                                  GNU Fortran (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-14ubuntu5) 4.4.5
    
    OpenVMS Alpha 8.3             HP C V7.3-009
                                  HP Fortran V8.2-104679-48H9K
                                  HP C++ V7.3-009

Tested Configuration Features Summary
========================================

    In the tables below
          y   = tested 
          n   = not tested in this release
          C   = Cluster
          W   = Workstation
          x   = not working in this release
          dna = does not apply
          ( ) = footnote appears below second table
          <blank> = testing incomplete on this feature or platform 

Platform                                 C        F90    F90      C++   zlib  SZIP
                                         parallel        parallel
Solaris2.10 32-bit                         n        y      n        y     y     y
Solaris2.10 64-bit                         n        y      n        y     y     y
Windows XP                                 n        y(4)   n        y     y     y
Windows XP x64                             n        y(4)   n        y     y     y
Windows Vista                              n        y(4)   n        y     y     y
Windows Vista x64                          n        y(4)   n        y     y     y
OpenVMS Alpha                              n        y      n        y     y     n
Mac OS X 10.7 Intel 32-bit                 n        y      n        y     y     y
Mac OS X 10.7 Intel 64-bit                 n        y      n        y     y     y
AIX 6.1 32- and 64-bit                     y        y      y        y     y     y
FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE 32&64 bit               n        x      n        x     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 GNU (1)W  y        y(2)   y        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 Intel  W  n        y      n        y     y     n
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-194 i686 PGI    W  n        y      n        y     y     n
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.16 x86_64 GNU (1)  W  y        y(3)   y        y     y     y
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.16 x86_64 Intel    W  n        y      n        y     y     n
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.16 x86_64 PGI      W  n        y      n        y     y     y
RedHat EL4 2.6.18 Xeon Lustre           C  y        y      y        y     y     n
Fedora 12 Linux 2.6.32.16-150.fc12.ppc64   n        y      n        y     y     y
SGI Linux 2.6.32.19                        y        y      y        y     y     y


Platform                                 Shared  Shared    Shared    Thread-  
                                         C libs  F90 libs  C++ libs  safe     
Solaris2.10 32-bit                         y       y         y         y        
Solaris2.10 64-bit                         y       y         y         y        
Windows XP                                 y       y(4)      y         n        
Windows XP x64                             y       y(4)      y         n        
Windows Vista                              y       y(4)      y         y
Windows Vista x64                          y       y(4)      y         y
OpenVMS Alpha                              n       n         n         n
Mac OS X 10.7 Intel 32-bit                 y(5)    n         y         n        
Mac OS X 10.7 Intel 64-bit                 y(5)    n         y         n        
AIX 6.1 32- and 64-bit                     n       n         n         y        
FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE 32&64 bit               y       x         x         y        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-128 i686 GNU (1)W  y       y(2)      y         y        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-128 i686 Intel  W  y       y         y         n        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.18-128 i686 PGI    W  y       y         y         n        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.16 x86_64 GNU (1)  W  y       y         y         y        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.16 x86_64 Intel    W  y       y         y         n        
CentOS 5.5 Linux 2.6.16 x86_64 PGI      W  y       y         y         n        
RedHat EL4 2.6.18 Xeon Lustre           C  y       y         y         n
Fedora 12 Linux 2.6.32.16-150.fc12.ppc64   y       y         y         y 
SGI Linux 2.6.32.19                        y       y         y         y 

           (1) Fortran compiled with gfortran.
           (2) With PGI and Absoft compilers.
           (3) With PGI compiler for Fortran.
           (4) Using Visual Studio 2008 w/ Intel Fortran 10.1 (Cygwin shared libraries are not supported)
           (5) C and C++ shared libraries will not be built when Fortran is enabled.
    Compiler versions for each platform are listed in the preceding
    "Platforms Tested" table.


Known Problems
==============
* After the shared library support was fixed for some bugs, it was discovered
  that "make prefix=XXX install" no longer works for shared libraries. It
  still works correctly for static libraries. Therefore, if you want to
  install the HDF5 shared libraries in a location such as /usr/local/hdf5,
  you need to specify the location via the --prefix option during configure 
  time. E.g, ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/hdf5 ...
  (AKC - 2011/05/07 HDFFV-7583)

* The parallel test, t_shapesame, in testpar/, may run for a long time and may
  be terminated by the alarm signal.  If that happens, one can increase the
  alarm seconds (default is 1200 seconds = 20 minutes) by setting the
  environment variable, $HDF5_ALARM_SECONDS, to a larger value such as 3600
  (60 minutes).  Note that the t_shapesame test may fail in some systems 
  (see the "While working on the 1.8.6 release..." problem below).  If 
  it does, it will waste more time if $HDF5_ALARM_SECONDS is set
  to a larger value. (AKC - 2011/05/07)

* The C++ and FORTRAN bindings are not currently working on FreeBSD.
  (QAK - 2011/04/26)

* Shared Fortran libraries are not quite working on AIX. While they are
  generated when --enable-shared is specified, the fortran and hl/fortran
  tests fail. We are looking into the issue. HL and C++ shared libraries
  should now be working as intended, however. (MAM - 2011/04/20)

* The --with-mpe configure option does not work with Mpich2. AKC - 2011/03/10

* If parallel gmake (e.g., gmake -j 4) is used, the "gmake clean" command
  sometimes fails in the perform directory due to the attempt to remove the
  executable of h5perf or h5perf_serial by two "parallel" commands. This error
  has no consequence on the functionality of the HDF5 library or install. It
  is fixed in the next release. AKC - 2011/01/25

* While working on the 1.8.6 release of HDF5, a bug was discovered that can
  occur when reading from a dataset in parallel shortly after it has been
  written to collectively. The issue was exposed by a new test in the parallel
  HDF5 test suite, but had existed before that. We believe the problem lies with
  certain MPI implementations and/or file systems.

  We have provided a pure MPI test program, as well as a standalone HDF5
  program, that can be used to determine if this is an issue on your system.
  They should be run across multiple nodes with a varying number of processes.
  These programs can be found at:
  http://www.hdfgroup.org/ftp/HDF5/examples/known_problems/

* The library's test dt_arith.c showed a compiler's rounding problem on
  Cygwin when converting from unsigned long long to long double.  The 
  library's own conversion works fine.  We defined a macro for Cygwin to
  skip this test until we can solve the problem.  Please see bug #1813.
  SLU - 2010/5/5 

* All the VFL drivers aren't backward compatible.  In H5FDpublic.h, the
  structure H5FD_class_t changed in 1.8.  There is new parameter added to
  get_eoa and set_eoa callback functions.  A new callback function
  get_type_map was added in.  The public function H5FDrealloc was taken
  out in 1.8.  The problem only happens when users define their own driver
  for 1.6 and try to plug in 1.8 library.  Because there's only one user 
  complaining about it, we (Elena, Quincey, and I) decided to leave it as 
  it is (see bug report #1279).  Quincey will make a plan for 1.10.
  SLU - 2010/2/2

* MinGW has a missing libstdc++.dll.a library file and will not successfully link
  C++ applications/tests. Do not use the enable-cxx configure option. Read all of
  the INSTALL_MINGW.txt file for all restrictions. ADB - 2009/11/11
  
* The PathScale MPI implementation, accessing a Panasas file system, would
  cause H5Fcreate() with H5F_ACC_EXCL to fail even when the file does not
  exist. This is due to the MPI_File_open() call failing if the mode has
  the MPI_MODE_EXCL bit set. (See bug 1468 for details.) AKC - 2009/8/11
 
* Parallel tests failed with 16 processes with data inconsistency at testphdf5
  / dataset_readAll. Parallel tests also failed with 32 and 64 processes with
  collective abort of all ranks at t_posix_compliant / allwrite_allread_blocks
  with MPI IO. CMC - 2009/04/28

* For Red Storm, a Cray XT3 system, the tools/h5ls/testh5ls.sh and
  tools/h5copy/testh5copy.sh will fail some of its sub-tests. These sub-tests
  are expected to fail and should exit with a non-zero code but the yod
  command does not propagate the exit code of the executables. Yod always
  returns 0 if it can launch the executable.  The test suite shell expects
  a non-zero for this particular test, therefore it concludes the test has
  failed when it receives 0 from yod.  Skip all the "failing" test for now
  by changing them as following.

  ======== Original tools/h5ls/testh5ls.sh =========
  TOOLTEST tgroup-1.ls 1 -w80 -r -g tgroup.h5
  ======== Change to ===============================
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST tgroup-1.ls 1 -w80 -r -g tgroup.h5
  ==================================================

  ======== Original tools/h5copy/testh5copy.sh =========
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d grp_rename
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d /grp_rename/grp_dsets
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_dsets -d /E/F/grp_dsets
  TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_nested -d /G/H/grp_nested
  H5LSTEST $FILEOUT
  ======== Change to ===============================
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d grp_rename
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -v -s grp_dsets  -d /grp_rename/grp_dsets
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_dsets -d /E/F/grp_dsets
  echo SKIP TOOLTEST_FAIL -i $TESTFILE -o $FILEOUT -vp -s /grp_nested -d /G/H/grp_nested
  echo SKIP H5LSTEST $FILEOUT
  ==================================================
  AKC - 2008/11/10

* For Red Storm, a Cray XT3 system, the yod command sometimes gives the
  message,  "yod allocation delayed for node recovery".  This interferes with
  test suites that do not expect to see this message.  See the section of "Red
  Storm" in file INSTALL_parallel for a way to deal with this problem.
  AKC - 2008/05/28

* On an Intel 64 Linux cluster (RH 4, Linux 2.6.9) with Intel 10.0 compilers, 
  use -mp -O1 compilation flags to build the libraries. A higher level of 
  optimization causes failures in several HDF5 library tests. 

* On mpich 1.2.5 and 1.2.6, if more than two processes contribute no IO and 
  the application asks to do collective IO, we have found that when using 4 
  processors, a simple collective write will sometimes be hung. This can be 
  verified with t_mpi test under testpar.

* A dataset created or rewritten with a v1.6.3 library or after cannot be read 
  with the v1.6.2 library or before when the Fletcher32 EDC filter is enabled.
  There was a bug in the calculation of the Fletcher32 checksum in the 
  library before v1.6.3; the checksum value was not consistent between big-
  endian and little-endian systems.  This bug was fixed in Release 1.6.3.  
  However, after fixing the bug, the checksum value was no longer the same as 
  before on little-endian system.  Library releases after 1.6.4 can still read 
  datasets created or rewritten with an HDF5 library of v1.6.2 or before.  
  SLU - 2005/6/30

* On IBM AIX systems, parallel HDF5 mode will fail some tests with error
  messages like "INFO: 0031-XXX ...".  This is from the command `poe'.
  Set the environment variable MP_INFOLEVEL to 0 to minimize the messages
  and run the tests again.

  The tests may fail with messages like "The socket name is already in use",  
  but HDF5 does not use sockets.  This failure is due to problems with the 
  poe command trying to set up the debug socket.  To resolve this problem, 
  check to see whether there are many old /tmp/s.pedb.* files staying around.  
  These are sockets used by the poe command and left behind due to failed 
  commands.  First, ask your system administrator to clean them out.  
  Lastly, request IBM to provide a means to run poe without the debug socket.

* The --enable-static-exec configure flag will only statically link libraries
  if the static version of that library is present. If only the shared version
  of a library exists (i.e., most system libraries on Solaris, AIX, and Mac,
  for example, only have shared versions), the flag should still result in a 
  successful compilation, but note that the installed executables will not be 
  fully static. Thus, the only guarantee on these systems is that the 
  executable is statically linked with just the HDF5 library.

* There is also a configure error on Altix machines that incorrectly reports 
  when a version of Szip without an encoder is being used.

* On cobalt, an SGI Altix SMP ia64 system, Intel compiler version 10.1 (which
  is the default on that system) does not work properly and results in
  failures during make check (in a static build) and make installcheck (during
  a shared build). This appears to be a compiler optimization problem.
  Reducing optimization by setting CFLAGS to -O1 or below resolves the issue.
  Alternatively, using a newer version of the compiler (11.0) also works as
  intended. MAM - 2010/06/01

* h5diff will not report enum value differences when one or both of the values
  is not a valid enumeration value.  The source of this bug has been identified
  and it will be fixed in 1.8.8. DER - 2011/04/27
