Version 2.6.0 · October 2026

Hierarchical Data Format query language

Hierarchical Data Format query language (HDFql) is the first tool that enables users to manage HDF5 files through a high-level, declarative language. Designed to be simple to use (similar to SQL), it provides a solid alternative to the C API and existing wrappers for C++, Java, Python, C#, Fortran, R, and MATLAB. In addition, whenever possible, HDFql automatically leverages all available cores and, in MPI clusters, nodes to speed up operations and process large volumes of data, hiding the underlying complexity from users.

Key benefits of HDFql include enabling users to replace dozens of lines of complex HDF5 code with just a few lines of simple code, helping AI models generate better code using far fewer tokens, and making AI-generated code easier for humans to review.