Re: frustrated by hdf_sd_adddata

[James Kuyper <kuyper(at)wizard.net>]

George McCabe wrote:
> 
> james,
> 
> thanks for you many suggestions.
> 
> can you tell me what do you mean by 'corrupt'. though i think that i
> understand the use of idl's hdf procedures, my general experience is
> limited. i am curious about occurances of hdf file corruption.

When I talk about file corruption, I'm not talking about anything
particularly exotic. HDF expects the input file to have data is a
certain format. If the file is damaged, the data might not be in the
right format any more. Ways to damage a file include using non-HDF
facilities to modify the file, doing file transfers with no error
checking, using text mode ftp, or physical damage to your storage
medium.

There are probably ways to damage an HDF file by passing bad arguments
to HDF functions, but I've never bothered testing to see which kinds of
bad arguments HDF actually checks for, and which ones it lets through.