Method “loadHdf5Library” is used to load the HDF5 shared library. It is simply used as follows:
Post.loadHdf5Library("C:/NewProgs/HDF5/HDF5-1.8.20-win32/bin/hdf5.dll")
This method has been introduced in the “Post” Module, even though it is presently used only as a prelude to loading results from HDF5 files in Nastran databases. It is hoped that other solvers like Samcef will also adopt this file format for their results.
Some work has been done to ensure the compatibility of FeResPost with different versions of the HDF5 library. For example, when FeResPost is compiled with the headers of HDF5 version 1.14.6, earlier versions of the library can be loaded dynamically. The test has been done successfully, with HDF5 version 1.8.20. On the other hand, when compiling FeResPost with HDF5 version 1.8.20 headers does not allow use of recent versions of HDF5, as version 1.14.6. This improvement should enhance the compatibility of distributed FeResPost binaries with different versions of HDF5 as as the sources are compiled with recent versions of HDF5.
An important remark: Since version 2024.1 of MSC Nastran, LZ4 or BLOSC compression algorithms are used by default in Nastran HDF5 outputs. (See release notes of MSC Nastran.) Plugins are needed to read corresponding files. These plugins can be found recent versions of HDF5 “lib/plugin” directory. They can also be found in MSC Nastran or Patran installation directories. To access these plugins you must set the environment variable “HDF5_PLUGIN_PATH” to point to plugin directories. For example, on Windows:
set HDF5_PLUGIN_PATH=C:/NEWPROGS/HDF5/HDF5-1.14.6-win64/lib/plugin
The definition of this variable must be done before starting ruby, Python... (For example it can be done in a batch file.)