Changes in version 2.24.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   Removed bundled HDF5 library - rhdf5 now depends on Rhdf5lib.  This
	 updates the version of HDF5 to 1.8.19.

    o   Functions H5Ldelete() and h5delete() added to provide mechanisms for
	 removing items from HDF files.

    o   Added argument `native` to many functions, which allows data to be
	 treated as row-major rather than column-major, improving
	 portability with other programming languages.

    o   Added function H5Sunlimited() allowing creation of extensible
	 datasets - thanks to Brad Friedman

BUG FIXES

    o   Datasets can now be subset using `[` and a range of values e.g.
	 did[,1:5].

    o   Writing a data.frame that contains factors and setting
	 DataFrameAsCompound=FALSE now works.

    o   Many functions that would leave open file handles after exiting
	 under error conditions have been fixed.

    o   Performance improvements in h5read().

Changes in version 2.20.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   Indexing into spaces with more than .Machine$integer.max elements is
	 supported using numeric (rather than integer) indexing; this
	 provides exact indexing into spaces with about 51 bits of
	 precision.

    o   Zero-length indexing is now supported (returning zero-length slabs).

BUG FIXES

    o   Using bit64conversion = "double" would always warn about loss of
	 precision, but now only warns when precision is actually lost.

Changes in version 2.18.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   The low-level functions H5Pset_libver_bounds and
	 H5Pget_libver_bounds is implemented. Creating files that can only
	 be read by library versions 1.8 or later allows the usage of large
	 attributes and improves performance.

USER VISIBLE CHANGES

    o   Per default all HDF5 files will be created with version 1.8 as lower
	 bound. That means the created files can only be read with HDF5
	 library versions >= 1.8. This changes allows the usage of large
	 attributes and leads to performance improvements. If one wants to
	 create a file that is readable with the earliest version of HDF5,
	 one has to call H5Fcreate with fapl=h5default("H5P").

    o   Warning messages from the package C code can now be suppressed by
	 the R-function suppressWarnings().

Changes in version 2.16.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   New access of HDF5 files by file, group and dataset handles. HDF5
	 groups and datasets can be read and written by the $-operator (e.g.
	 h5f$A) and the [-operator can be used for partial reading and
	 writing of datasets (e.g. h5d[3,,]).

    o   New low level general library function H5Dget_create_plist
	 implemented.

    o   Removed #include <R.H> from external C code. To be compatible with
	 newest C-compilers and current R-devel

Changes in version 2.14.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   improved handling of error messages: HDF5 error messages are
	 simplified and forwarded to R.

    o   When reading integer valued data, especially 64-integers and
	 unsigned 32-bit integers, overflow values are now replaced by NA's
	 and a warning is thrown in this case.

    o   When coercing HDF5-integers to R-double, a warning is displayed when
	 integer precision is lost.

    o   New low level general library function H5Dget_storage_size
	 implemented.

BUG FIXES

    o   Memory allocation on heap instead of stack for reading large
	 datasets (Thanks to a patch from Jimmy Jia).

    o   Some bugs have been fixed for reading large 64-bit integers and
	 unsigned 32-bit integers.

    o   A bug was fixed for reading HDF5 files containing soft links.

Changes in version 2.12.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   Filenames are expanded with normalizePaths.

    o   New function h5set_extent implemented.

    o   New low level function H5Sset_extent_simple implemented.

BUG FIXES

    o   Segmentation fault while writing data type names for uncommitted
	 data types.

Changes in version 2.10.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   Added support for HDF5 property lists.

    o   Added property list arguments to H5Dcreate and H5Dopen.

    o   New function h5readAttributes implemented that reads all HDF5
	 attributes of one object.

    o   New function h5version implemented.

    o   fillValue parameter added to h5createDataset.

    o   New low level general library functions H5Lcreate_external,
	 H5Fis_hdf5, H5Fget_filesize, H5Fget_name, H5Pcreate, H5Pcopy,
	 H5Pget_class, H5Pclose, H5Pclose_class, H5Pset_char_encoding,
	 H5Pset_create_intermediate_group, H5Pset_chunk_cache,
	 H5Pset_layout, H5Pset_chunk, H5Pget_chunk, H5Pset_deflate,
	 H5Pset_fill_value, H5Pset_fill_time, H5Pset_alloc_time, H5Pequal
	 implemented.

    o   Support for parallel Make (make -j)

USER VISIBLE CHANGES

    o   A warning is shown in high level function (h5read, h5write and
	 others), if an open HDF5 handle already exists for the specified
	 filename.

BUG FIXES

    o   Error in h5write for 0-length objects, as a consequence of automatic
	 determining chunk size

    o   missing size parameter message in h5createDataset now correctly
	 display

    o   checking for open file identifiers in h5read and h5ls now only
	 searches for file names in open files, groups and datasets.

    o   assignment has now correct pointer target type (void *) in
	 H5Pset_fill_value

Changes in version 2.8.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   New function h5version implemented.

    o   New low level general library functions H5open, H5close,
	 H5garbage_collect, H5get_libversion, and H5Dset_extent implemented.

USER VISIBLE CHANGES

    o   h5createDataset automatically uses chunking and compression.

    o   Added a warning if chunk size is equal to dimensions for large
	 compressed datasets.

BUG FIXES

    o   C-stack overflow when reading large fixed-length strings.

    o   error in i/o with chunksize or blocksize parameters.

    o   compiling errors due to missing int return value.

Changes in version 2.6.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   support for logical added

    o   support for reading attributes added (use read.attributes=TRUE)

    o   enabeled compression for data.frame in h5write

USER VISIBLE CHANGES

    o   Use BiocStyles for package vignette

Changes in version 2.4.0:

NEW FEATURES

    o   support for reading 64-bit integers added

    o   support for reading variable length strings added

    o   support for reading scalar objects added

USER VISIBLE CHANGES

    o   NEWS.Rd added

    o   display of chunksize.pdf as a vignette avoided