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Re: 20050427: Is there a way to read data "raw" and skip the swap calls
- Subject: Re: 20050427: Is there a way to read data "raw" and skip the swap calls
- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:42:22 -0600
Greg,
> I was under the impression that hdf5 data was "reader makes right" where
> the data is swapped on read only if necessary. Is the XDR order
> specific just to netcdf-4's usage, or is that how it is for all hdf5
> files?
Using XDR order for external data is the way we're currently doing it
in netCDF-4. One reason we did this was to simplify comparing the
same data written on different platforms.
HDF5 is very flexible in terms of format. With HDF5, the writer can
choose a non-native representation to favor known readers. But if the
writer uses native representation, that implements "reader makes right".
It would be a fairly simple change for us to have netcdf-4 write using
native representations instead of XDR. Our current choice is better
in the case of data written once by a little-endian platform and read
many times by big-endian platforms, but that may be less common than
the other combinations where "reader makes right" wins.
--Russ
