Why are there .err files next to test files in binary plugin download?

I was taking a look at the binary plugin files that you can download from HDF Group, and I noticed they come with some test files under share/HDFPLExamples/example/testfiles.

h5ex_d_blosc.ddl
h5ex_d_blosc.err
h5ex_d_blosc.h5
h5ex_d_blosc.tst
h5ex_d_bshuf.ddl
h5ex_d_bshuf.err
h5ex_d_bshuf.h5
h5ex_d_bshuf.tst
h5ex_d_bzip2.ddl
h5ex_d_bzip2.err

In the files ending in .err, they have the following contents:

version (number)) thread (IDs):
  #000: (file name) line (number) in H5Dcreate2(): unable to create dataset
    major: Dataset
    minor: Unable to initialize object
  #001: (file name) line (number) in H5D__create_named(): unable to create and link to dataset
    major: Dataset
    minor: Unable to initialize object
  #002: (file name) line (number) in H5L_link_object(): unable to create new link to object
    major: Links
    minor: Unable to initialize object
  #003: (file name) line (number) in H5L__create_real(): can't insert link
    major: Links
    minor: Unable to insert object
  #004: (file name) line (number) in H5G_traverse(): internal path traversal failed
    major: Symbol table
    minor: Object not found
  #005: (file name) line (number) in H5G__traverse_real(): traversal operator failed
    major: Symbol table
    minor: Callback failed
  #006: (file name) line (number) in H5L__link_cb(): unable to create object
    major: Links
    minor: Unable to initialize object
  #007: (file name) line (number) in H5O_obj_create(): unable to open object
    major: Object header
    minor: Can't open object
  #008: (file name) line (number) in H5O__dset_create(): unable to create dataset
    major: Dataset
    minor: Unable to initialize object
  #009: (file name) line (number) in H5D__create(): I/O filters can't operate on this dataset
    major: Invalid arguments to routine
    minor: Unable to initialize object
  #010: (file name) line (number) in H5Z_can_apply(): unable to apply filter
    major: Data filters
    minor: Error from filter 'can apply' callback
  #011: (file name) line (number) in H5Z__prepare_prelude_callback_dcpl(): unable to apply filter
    major: Data filters
    minor: Error from filter 'can apply' callback
  #012: (file name) line (number) in H5Z__prelude_callback(): Filter present but encoding is disabled.
    major: Data filters
    minor: Filter present but encoding disabled

The err files seem to have similar time stamps as their .h5 files. Why is the binary plugin distribution being distributed with such files and what do the errors mean about the included plugins?

So far I have looked at

  1. hdf5plugin-1.10.6-win10_64_vs16.zip
  2. hdf5plugin-1.10.8-fedora34_64.tar.gz
  3. hdf5plugin-1.12.0-win10_64-vs15.zip

They all seem to contain to contain those error files along with similar errors.

I think those are harmless and used only for testing. They show the error message you WOULD get, IF the library couldn’t find the plugin in question. Note that (file name) and (number) are just placeholders. In a real run, those would be populated with real file names and line numbers.

G.

Right those files are used only for testing. During testing we try to test working and expected errors.