How can I save complex data to HDF5 file?

I'm looking for a good way to save complex data, having a real and imaginary component, to an HDF5 file. Is there something out there that can help or do I need to create a new data type? And if I do create a new data type, would the data be readable by other programs that load HDF5 or do I need to write a custom loading function?

Answer 1

[per isakson]

There are two alternatives

• Use Matlab's high level functions to write the real and the imaginary part to separate datasets
• Create a compound datatype, which requires Matlab's low level hdf support. The documentation of the low level functions is sparse. See Example 9. A compound datatype for complex numbers

There should be no problems to read either with any languages, which have HDF5-support.

"something out there" &nbsp I don't think so, however, see

• http://se.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/160455#answer_157626 and
• http://se.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/244289
• HDF5 data to struct reader by Pauli Virtanen says [...] Complex numbers are also supported; compound datasets with two fields 'r' and 'i' interpreted as complex numbers.
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.soft-sys.matlab/PibURS-SbgM