Which RPMS do I need?

There are 4 hdf5-1.8.5 RPMs in this directory, 2 for 32 bit linux (i386),
2 for 64 bit linux (x86_64).  All 4 rpms are configured with szip encoder 
enabled.  The two rpms that have with.szip.encoder in their name will install
the szip files along with the hdf5 library files.   The others also need szip,
but can use a previously installed 2.0 or 2.1 version, or the szip RPMs also 
in this directory can be downloaded and installed separately.

                              Installing

It is preferable to install rpms as the root user, because the commands are
simpler and the system rpm database will be used to check dependencies and
record the installation.  The basic command to do this is "rpm -Uvh <rpm package
file>".  If installing as the root user is impossible or undesirable, the rpms
in this directory are relocatable and may be installed by a non-root user with
two additional command line options.

The first additional option can be either --dbpath <path to directory for rpm
database files> or --root <path to alternate "/">.  The first of these options
may not be available in older versions of rpm.  Whichever option is chosen
will be required for all future rpm commands for these rpms.  The directory
specified for --dbpath must have write permission for the user and will be used
to store the rpm database files.  For the second option, the directory specified
must also have write permission for the user, and var/tmp, var/lock, and
var/lib/rpm should be created in the alternate directory as well as a file
var/lock/transaction ("touch transaction in the var/lock direcory).  The rpm
program will "chroot" to the alternate "/" directory and  the  database files
will be stored in the var/lib/rpm directory.

It should be possible though optional to copy the system rpm directory 
(/var/lib/rpm) to the directory specified for --dbpath or to var/lib in the 
directory specified for --root.  Doing this will allow the rpm to find 
dependencies that are already installed on the system.  This database will not 
be updated with future changes to software installed on the system.  If the 
system rpm is not copied the rpm database will not know about libraries it has
not installed and will fail to install, listing the missing dependencies.  If 
these missing dependencies are in fact present on the system the --nodeps
option can be added to the install command to bypass the dependency checker.  

The second additional option can be either --prefix=<install directory> or
--relocate=/usr=<install directory> where the user has write permissions for
<install directory>.  The rpms will install files in the bin, include, lib or
lib64, and share subdirectories of this install directory instead of the
default /usr directory.

Here are some example commands using --dbpath and --prefix:

install command:         rpm --install --dbpath $HOME/rpm --prefix $HOME/usr
                              hdf5-1.8.5-1.with.szip.encoder.el5.i386.rpm                  
check for hdf5 install:  rpm --query --dbpath $HOME/rpm hdf5
uninstall command:       rpm -e --dbpath $HOME/rpm hdf5



                    Workaround for compile scripts

Current h5redeploy does not work correctly with the compile scripts as
installed by rpm.  Compile scripts can be corrected manually until h5redeploy
is fixed.  Near the beginning of h5cc, h5fc, and h5c++ in the section headed
"Things You May Have to Modify:" you will find these four lines beginning at
line 27 or 29:

prefix="<prefix specified when installing>" or "/usr"
exec_prefix="/usr"
libdir="/usr/lib64"
includedir="/usr/include"

Running h5redeploy resets prefix in the first of these lines to the directory
where it is run.  Changing the three subsequent lines to the following will
fix the compile scripts and restore the full functionality of h5redeploy.
Note that the libdir line will end in lib64 for 64 bit installs or lib for
32 bit installs.

exec_prefix="${prefix}"
libdir="${exec_prefix}/lib64"
includedir="${prefix}/include"

                    Workaround for hdf5_example scripts

The scripts to run the examples in <install_directory>/share/hdf5_examples 
will not run if the rpm is installed with --prefix or --relocate.  The 
workaround for this is to set prefix in the environment to the directory 
specified for the install, e.g. $HOME/usr in the example above.