Attributes of External Links only accessible in "r" mode

HDF5 Library h5py
1

Python 3.8
h5py 2.10.0
Windows 10

I have found that when using any other mode, other than “r”, attributes associated with groups in external files are not accessible and an error is raised.

This works:

hfile = h5py.File("..\\casa\\_data\\_casa.h5", "r") 

# Link to group in external file
hfile["/149901/20118/VRM_DATA"].attrs

Out[21]: <Attributes of HDF5 object at 1660502855488>
hfile.close()

This does not work:

hfile = h5py.File("..\\casa\\_data\\_casa.h5", "r+")

# link to group in external file
hfile["/149901/20118/VRM_DATA"].attrs

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\HIAPRC\Miniconda3\envs\py38\lib\site-packages\IPython\core\interactiveshell.py", line 3418, in run_code
    exec(code_obj, self.user_global_ns, self.user_ns)
  File "<ipython-input-24-1af973f96bc2>", line 1, in <module>
    hfile["/149901/20118/VRM_DATA"].attrs
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 54, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 55, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "C:\Users\HIAPRC\Miniconda3\envs\py38\lib\site-packages\h5py\_hl\group.py", line 264, in __getitem__
    oid = h5o.open(self.id, self._e(name), lapl=self._lapl)
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 54, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 55, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "h5py\h5o.pyx", line 190, in h5py.h5o.open
KeyError: "Unable to open object (unable to open external file, external link file name = '.\\sub_files\\casa_2021-01-13_10-03-51.h5')"

Is this a result of design or a bug?

Note: I am able to edit and save attributes using links to groups in external files using HDFView 3.1.1. So the external file is writable.

2

I received some assistance on stack overflow. Using a simple example I was able to get a reference to external link attributes in ‘r+’ mode. So I guess I have some digging to do in my code to determine what the problem is.

3

Solved the problem. It turned out to be the way I was assigning the external link. Though it makes me wonder why the way I did it worked in one mode and not another.

If someone from h5py wants me to elaborate, I would be happy to do so.