Warning about PyNIO 1.3.0b3 beta version

If any of you are using a beta version of PyNIO that we provided you
with last week or in the last few months, please be aware that the
Unidata/HDF5 folks have uncovered a serious bug that could manifest
itself if you use PyNIO to create NetCDF files:

    We have just been informed of a bug in HDF5-1.8.4 that causes a
problem
    in files written using netCDF-4.1. The symptom is that if a
variable or
    group is created with more than 8 attributes, the resulting file
becomes
    non-portable between little-endian and big-endian platforms.

    The HDF5 developers have a fix and are testing it now. We are also
    about to test a prerelease snapshot of the fix.

    This note is to inform the netCDF community about this problem
and the
    upcoming fix, which we expect to be officially announced sometime
next
    week.

    In the meantime, we recommend that you not use netCDF-4 linked with
    HDF5-1.8.4 to write netCDF-4 or netCDF-4 classic model files that
have
     more than 8 attributes for any data object, including more than
8 global
    attributes. We will add a test to the netCDF-4 version 4.1.1
release
    that would have uncovered this bug, test the HDF5 fix to make
sure it
    creates portable netCDF-4 files, and keep you informed of
progress on
    this issue.

I built the PyNIO 1.3.0b3 binaries against these versions of NetCDF
and HDF5, so I recommend that you don't use this version to
write NetCDF files.

I'll let you know when/if new PyNIO beta binaries become available.

--Mary

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Received on Mon Feb 22 13:42:33 2010