Low-Level API

This documentation mostly describes the h5py high-level API, which offers the main features of HDF5 in an interface modelled on dictionaries and NumPy arrays. h5py also provides a low-level API, which more closely follows the HDF5 C API.

See also

• h5py Low-Level API Reference

• HDF5 C/Fortran Reference Manual

You can easily switch between the two levels in your code:

• To the low-level: High-level File, Group and Dataset objects all have a .id attribute exposing the corresponding low-level objects—FileID, GroupID and DatasetID:

  dsid = dset.id
  dsid.get_offset()  # Low-level method
  

  Although there is no high-level object for a single attribute, AttributeManager.get_id() will get the low-level AttrID object:

  aid = dset.attrs.get_id('timestamp')
  aid.get_storage_size()  # Low-level method
  

• To the high-level: Low-level FileID, GroupID and DatasetID objects can be passed to the constructors of File, Group and Dataset, respectively.