The group serving as the root of the iteration is specified by the loc_id / group_name parameter pair. loc_id specifies a file or group; group_name specifies either a group in the file (with an absolute name based in the file’s root group) or a group relative to loc_id. If loc_id fully specifies the group that is to serve as the root of the iteration, group_name should be '.' (a dot). (Note that when loc_id fully specifies the the group that is to serve as the root of the iteration, the user may wish to consider using H5Lvisit instead of H5Lvisit_by_name.)

Two parameters are used to establish the iteration: index_type and order.

index_type specifies the index to be used. If the links have not been indexed by the index type, they will first be sorted by that index then the iteration will begin; if the links have been so indexed, the sorting step will be unnecesary, so the iteration may begin more quickly. Valid values include the following:

	H5_INDEX_NAME	Alpha-numeric index on name
	H5_INDEX_CRT_ORDER	Index on creation order

Note that the index type passed in index_type is a best effort setting. If the application passes in a value indicating iteration in creation order and a group is encountered that was not tracked in creation order, that group will be iterated over in alpha-numeric order by name, or name order. (Name order is the native order used by the HDF5 Library and is always available.)

order specifies the order in which objects are to be inspected along the index specified in index_type. Valid values include the following:

	H5_ITER_INC	Increasing order
	H5_ITER_DEC	Decreasing order
	H5_ITER_NATIVE	Fastest available order

The op callback funtion, the related H5L_info_t struct, and the effect that the callback function’s return value has on the application are described in H5Lvisit.

The H5Lvisit_by_name op_data parameter is a user-defined pointer to the data required to process links in the course of the iteration. This pointer is passed back to each step of the iteration in the callback function’s op_data parameter.

lapl_id is a link access property list. In the general case, when default link access properties are acceptable, this can be passed in as H5P_DEFAULT. An example of a situation that requires a non-default link access property list is when the link is an external link; an external link may require that a link prefix be set in a link access property list (see H5Pset_elink_prefix).
 

H5Lvisit_by_name and H5Ovisit_by_name are companion functions: one for examining and operating on links; the other for examining and operating on the objects that those links point to. Both functions ensure that by the time the function completes successfully, every link or object below the specified point in the file has been presented to the application for whatever processing the application requires.

If a C routine that takes a function pointer as an argument is called from within C++ code, the C routine should be returned from normally.

Examples of this kind of routine include callbacks such as H5Pset_elink_cb and H5Pset_type_conv_cb and functions such as H5Tconvert and H5Ewalk2.

Exiting the routine in its normal fashion allows the HDF5 C Library to clean up its work properly. In other words, if the C++ application jumps out of the routine back to the C++ “catch” statement, the library is not given the opportunity to close any temporary data structures that were set up when the routine was called. The C++ application should save some state as the routine is started so that any problem that occurs might be diagnosed.

On failure, returns a negative value if something goes wrong within the library, or the first negative value returned by an operator.