Timestamps in HDF5

Hdf-forum archives
1

Hi all,
I had a question from a user about the best way to record timestamps in
HDF5. I understand that the H5T_TIME datatype is not supported/is not
portable (as mentioned in
http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/RM/RM_H5T.html#Datatype-GetClass); so is
there a portable way to save timestamps? Or is it "roll your own"?

Specifically, does HDFView have something it considers/displays as a
datestamp? In particular, say I have some compound dataset with one element
being a timestamp, and I want to scroll down to find a particular time,
what type should I use to make that easy? Obviously a Unix time integer is
one solution, but not a particularly user-friendly one.

Cheers,
Martijn

2

I work on the Windows side, and my first solution was to store the Windows DateTime.Ticks (similar to, but different than Unix time). But I got enough push back that I had to add a string version of the time for ease of use. It's not ideal, but they both sit in the data side-by-side.

Scott

ยทยทยท

________________________________
From: Hdf-forum [hdf-forum-bounces@lists.hdfgroup.org] on behalf of Martijn Jasperse [m.jasperse@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2014 7:53 PM
To: HDF Users Discussion List
Subject: [Hdf-forum] Timestamps in HDF5

Hi all,
I had a question from a user about the best way to record timestamps in HDF5. I understand that the H5T_TIME datatype is not supported/is not portable (as mentioned in http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/RM/RM_H5T.html#Datatype-GetClass); so is there a portable way to save timestamps? Or is it "roll your own"?

Specifically, does HDFView have something it considers/displays as a datestamp? In particular, say I have some compound dataset with one element being a timestamp, and I want to scroll down to find a particular time, what type should I use to make that easy? Obviously a Unix time integer is one solution, but not a particularly user-friendly one.

Cheers,
Martijn

________________________________

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