How to read HDF5 files in Python

I am trying to read data from hdf5 file in Python. I can read the hdf5 file using h5py, but I cannot figure out how to access data within the file.

My code

import h5py    
import numpy as np    
f1 = h5py.File(file_name,'r+')

This works and the file is read. But how can I access data inside the file object f1?

Solution 1:

Read HDF5

import h5py
filename = "file.hdf5"

with h5py.File(filename, "r") as f:
    # List all groups
    print("Keys: %s" % f.keys())
    a_group_key = list(f.keys())[0]

    # Get the data
    data = list(f[a_group_key])

Write HDF5

import h5py

# Create random data
import numpy as np
data_matrix = np.random.uniform(-1, 1, size=(10, 3))

# Write data to HDF5
with h5py.File("file.hdf5", "w") as data_file:
    data_file.create_dataset("group_name", data=data_matrix)

See h5py docs for more information.

Alternatives

JSON: Nice for writing human-readable data; VERY commonly used (read & write)
CSV: Super simple format (read & write)
pickle: A Python serialization format (read & write)
MessagePack (Python package): More compact representation (read & write)
HDF5 (Python package): Nice for matrices (read & write)
XML: exists too *sigh* (read & write)

For your application, the following might be important:

Support by other programming languages
Reading / writing performance
Compactness (file size)

See also: Comparison of data serialization formats

In case you are rather looking for a way to make configuration files, you might want to read my short article Configuration files in Python

Solution 2:

Reading the file

import h5py

f = h5py.File(file_name, mode)

Studying the structure of the file by printing what HDF5 groups are present

for key in f.keys():
    print(key) #Names of the groups in HDF5 file.

Extracting the data

#Get the HDF5 group
group = f[key]

#Checkout what keys are inside that group.
for key in group.keys():
    print(key)

data = group[some_key_inside_the_group][()]
#Do whatever you want with data

#After you are done
f.close()

Solution 3:

you can use Pandas.

import pandas as pd
pd.read_hdf(filename,key)

Solution 4:

Here's a simple function I just wrote which reads a .hdf5 file generated by the save_weights function in keras and returns a dict with layer names and weights:

def read_hdf5(path):

    weights = {}

    keys = []
    with h5py.File(path, 'r') as f: # open file
        f.visit(keys.append) # append all keys to list
        for key in keys:
            if ':' in key: # contains data if ':' in key
                print(f[key].name)
                weights[f[key].name] = f[key].value
    return weights

https://gist.github.com/Attila94/fb917e03b04035f3737cc8860d9e9f9b.

Haven't tested it thoroughly but does the job for me.