HDF5 feature support

h5v can browse groups, datasets, links, broken links, and synthetic nodes created for projected compound fields.

Matrixable and previewable data types

Type familyPreviewMatrixNotes
Signed integersYesYesRendered as numeric data
Unsigned integersYesYesRendered as numeric data
Floating pointYesYesRendered as numeric data
BooleanYesYesRouted through unsigned rendering
EnumYesYesUses colored symbols and labels, with optional dataset-defined overrides
Fixed stringsTextYesFixed strings are read with a 32768-byte limit
Variable stringsTextYesGood for inline string inspection
CompoundSchema or projected previewProjected fields onlyRoot compound matrix rendering is not implemented
Fixed arraysLimitedNoStandalone fixed arrays are not matrixable through the main renderer
Variable arraysLimitedNoNot matrixable through the main matrix renderer
ReferencesLimitedNoNo dedicated matrix renderer

Matrix mode is only available when a dataset is matrixable and its shape has at least one dimension larger than 1. Single-value datasets stay in scalar preview mode.

Strings and highlighting

String datasets can carry a HIGHLIGHT attribute with an extension hint such as json, py, or yml. If it is absent, h5v falls back to the dataset name extension.

Enum styling overrides

Enum datasets can override the default symbol and color cycle with:

  • SYMBOLS: a 1D string attribute, aligned with ascending numeric enum value order
  • COLORS: a 1D string attribute, aligned with ascending numeric enum value order

Color values accept named colors and #RRGGBB. See Configuration reference.

Group preview expressions

Groups can opt into preview rendering with a variable-length string attribute named H5V_PREVIEW_EXPR. The value uses the same expression syntax as multichart.

Image metadata handling

Datasets that follow the HDF5 image convention are rendered inline as images. See Images and Image conventions.

Properties vs attributes

type, size, shape, chunk, link, and path are properties shown in the Properties section. They are not HDF5 attributes.

Those built-in properties include:

  • type
  • size
  • shape
  • chunk
  • link
  • path