Script demonstrating the problems of figuring out if a group is a link or not with h5py

h5py_links.py

from __future__ import print_function
import h5py
import numpy as np
import os

_fname = "/tmp/links_test.h5"

def write():
  f=h5py.File(_fname,"w")
  f["/data1/v1"] = np.random.random(1000)
  f["/data1/v2"] = np.random.random(1000)
  f["/data2/v1"] = np.random.random(1000)
  f["/data2/v2"] = np.random.random(1000)
  sl = h5py.SoftLink("/data1")
  f["/link"] = sl
  print("Creating",_fname,"with:")
  print(" /data1/v{1,2}")
  print(" /data2/v{1,2}")
  print(" /link linking to /data1")
  f.close()

def detectLinks():
  f=h5py.File(_fname,"r")
  print("\nTrying to figure out upon reading what is a link to what")
  print("h5ls can easily figure out:")
  os.system("h5ls %s"%_fname)
  print("\n")
  print("*** Method 1 Trying to use 'type':")
  for group in f:
    print("Name:",group,'type is',type(f[group]))
  print("It does not work, type is same")
  print("\n")
  print("*** Method 2 Trying to use 'id':")
  for group in f:
    print("Name:",group,'id is',f[group].id.id)
  print("It does not work, id is always the same")


  
if __name__ == "__main__":
  write()
  detectLinks()