[petsc-dev] need for HDF5 < 1.8.0 support?

[Smith, Barry F.]

> On Dec 7, 2018, at 8:56 AM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
> 
> "Smith, Barry F." <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> writes:
> 
>>  A potential drawback is some users also use HDF5 directly in their code and may be using an older version (people are very slow to change).
> 
> The HDF5 developers were very deliberate about this.  You can still use
> the old API in your own code while linking to the new library.  See
> H5_USE_16_API.
> 
> https://support.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/doc/RM/APICompatMacros.html

   This pages is a firehose. Most people who have HDF5 in their code (that someone else probably wrote) will never get through this page to know what to do. 

    I'm fine with removing the older versions if everyone else is but I definitely remember this exact issue occurring in the past; perhaps now HDF5 has resolved it somewhere in their firehose.

   Barry