Organization

In h5lite: Simplified 'HDF5' Interface

knitr::opts_chunk$set(collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>")

HDF5 files are best understood as "file systems within a file." Just as your computer has folders and files, an HDF5 file has Groups (folders) and Datasets (files). This hierarchical structure allows you to organize complex experimental data, metadata, and configuration settings into a single, self-describing package.

This vignette explains how to create, manage, and modify this structure using h5lite.

library(h5lite)
file <- tempfile(fileext = ".h5")

The Hierarchical Model

HDF5 uses POSIX-style paths (like Linux or macOS) to identify objects. The root of the file is /.

• / : The Root Group
• /experiment_1 : A Group (folder)
• /experiment_1/data : A Dataset (file) inside the group

Creating Groups

Implicit Creation (Recommended)

In most cases, you do not need to create groups manually. When you write a dataset to a path like "data/experiment/run1", h5lite automatically creates the parent groups "data" and "data/experiment" if they do not exist.

Explicit Creation

If you need to create an empty group structure (perhaps to add attributes to it), you can use h5_create_group(). This function works like mkdir -p: it creates all necessary parent groups.

# Create a deep hierarchy
h5_create_group(file, "project_A/simulation/run_01")

# Verify
h5_str(file)

Using Lists as Groups

The most powerful way to organize data in h5lite is by mapping R lists to HDF5 groups.

When you pass a named list to h5_write(), h5lite recursively writes the list structure to the file.

• Named Lists become Groups.
• Atomic Vectors/Matrices inside the list become Datasets.

This allows you to organize your entire data structure in R and save it to disk in one command.

# Define a complex structure in R
experiment_data <- list(
  metadata = list(
    id         = I(101),
    technician = I("Dr. Smith"),
    timestamp  = I("2023-10-27")
  ),
  measurements = list(
    raw         = runif(10),
    calibration = c(0.1, 0.9)
  ),
  status = I("complete")
)

# Write the entire structure to a group named "exp_101"
h5_write(experiment_data, file, "exp_101")

Inspecting Structure

You can visualize the organization of your file using h5_ls() and h5_str().

• h5_ls(): Returns a character vector of names. Useful for programmatic checks.
• h5_str(): Prints a tree diagram. Useful for interactive exploration.

# List all objects recursively
h5_ls(file)

# Visualize the tree
h5_str(file)

Moving and Renaming

Data organization often changes. You can rename objects or move them to different groups using h5_move().

This operation is metadata-only, meaning it is extremely fast even for large datasets, as the data itself is not rewritten.

# Rename 'exp_101' to 'archive_101'
h5_move(file, "exp_101", "archive_101")

# Move 'project_A' inside 'archive_101'
h5_move(file, "project_A", "archive_101/project_A")

h5_ls(file)

Deleting Objects

You can remove groups or datasets using h5_delete().

• Deleting a dataset removes the data.
• Deleting a group removes the group and all of its children (recursively).
• The file size does not change, but the freed space can be reused.

# Delete the entire archive group
h5_delete(file, "archive_101")

# The file is now empty (except for the root)
h5_ls(file)

unlink(file)

h5lite documentation built on May 19, 2026, 1:07 a.m.