Compound Datatypes

HDF5 compound datatypes can be compared to C structures, Fortran structures, or SQL records. Compound datatypes can be nested; there is no limitation to the complexity of a compound datatype. Each member of a compound datatype must have a descriptive name, which is the key used to uniquely identify the member within the compound datatype.

Use one of the H5T_COMPOUND_CREATE or H5T_IDL_CREATE routines to create compound datatypes. Use the following routines to work with compound datatypes:

Example

See H5F_CREATE for an extensive example using compound datatypes.