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| HDF5 Last Updated on 2026-03-23 The HDF5 Field Guide

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HDF5 Library Code Conventions

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This document describes some practices that are new, or newly documented, starting in 2020.

# Function / Variable Attributes

In H5private.h, the library provides platform-independent macros for qualifying function and variable definitions.

## Functions that accept `printf(3)` and `scanf(3)` format strings

Label functions that accept a `printf(3)`-compliant format string with `H5_ATTR_FORMAT(printf,format_argno,variadic_argno)`, where the format string is the `format_argno`th argument (counting from 1) and the variadic arguments start with the `variadic_argno`th.

Functions that accept a `scanf(3)`-compliant format string should be labeled `H5_ATTR_FORMAT(scanf,format_argno,variadic_argno)`.

## Functions that do never return

The definition of a function that always causes the program to abort and hang should be labeled `H5_ATTR_NORETURN` to help the compiler see which flows of control are infeasible.

## Other attributes

TBD**

## Unused variables and parameters

Compilers will warn about unused parameters and variables—developers should pay attention to those warnings and make an effort to prevent them.

Some function parameters and variables are unused in all configurations of the project. Ordinarily, such parameters and variables should be deleted. However, sometimes it is possible to foresee a parameter being used, or removing it would change an API, or a parameter has to be defined to conform a function to some function pointer type. In those cases, it's permissible to mark a symbol `H5_ATTR_UNUSED`.

Other parameters and variables are unused in some configurations of the project, but not all. A symbol may fall into disuse in some configuration in the future—then the compiler should warn, and the symbol should not be defined—so developers should try to label a sometimes-unused symbol with an attribute that's specific to the configurations where the symbol is (or is not) expected to be used. The library provides the following attributes for that purpose:

- `H5_ATTR_DEPRECATED_USED`: used only if deprecated symbols are enabled
- `H5_ATTR_NDEBUG_UNUSED`: used only if `NDEBUG` is not #defined
- `H5_ATTR_DEBUG_API_USED`: used if the debug API is enabled
- `H5_ATTR_PARALLEL_UNUSED`: used only if Parallel HDF5 is not configured
- `H5_ATTR_PARALLEL_USED`: used only if Parallel HDF5 is configured

Some attributes may be phased in or phased out in the future.

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