# HDF5 for Python

The h5py package is a Pythonic interface to the HDF5 binary data format.

HDF5 lets you store huge amounts of numerical data, and easily manipulate that data from NumPy. For example, you can slice into multi-terabyte datasets stored on disk, as if they were real NumPy arrays. Thousands of datasets can be stored in a single file, categorized and tagged however you want.

## Where to start

- Quick-start guide

- Installation

## Other resources

- Python and HDF5 O’Reilly book

- Ask questions on the HDF forum

- GitHub project

## Introductory info

- Quick Start Guide
- Installation

## High-level API reference

- File Objects
- Groups
- Datasets
- Attributes
- Dimension Scales
- Low-Level API

## Advanced topics

- Configuring h5py
- Special types
- Strings in HDF5
- Object and Region References
- Parallel HDF5
- Multi-threading
- Single Writer Multiple Reader (SWMR)
- Virtual Datasets (VDS)
- Tools and Related Projects

## Meta-info about the h5py project

- “What’s new” documents
- Bug Reports & Contributions
- Release Guide
- FAQ
- Licenses and legal info