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| Filename extension | .hdf, .h4, .hdf4, .he2, .h5, .hdf5, .he5 |
|---|---|
| Internet media type | application/x-hdf, application/x-hdf5 |
| Magic number | \211HDF\r\n\032\n |
| Developed by | The HDF Group |
| Type of format | Scientific data format |
| Open format? | Yes |
| Website | www |
Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) is a set of file formats (HDF4, HDF5) designed to store and organize large amounts of data. Originally developed at the U.S. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, it is supported by The HDF Group, a non-profit corporation whose mission is to ensure continued development of HDF5 technologies and the continued accessibility of data stored in HDF.
In keeping with this goal, the HDF libraries and associated tools are available under a liberal, BSD-like license for general use. HDF is supported by many commercial and non-commercial software platforms and programming languages. The freely available HDF distribution consists of the library, command-line utilities, test suite source, Java interface, and the Java-based HDF Viewer (HDFView).[1]
The current version, HDF5, differs significantly in design and API from the major legacy version HDF4.