Files
clawhdf5/crates/clawhdf5-remote/README.md
T
osobhandClaude Opus 5.5 4ff3e40fea clawhdf5-remote: object stores through object_store (S3, GCS, Azure)
ObjectStoreStorage (feature `object-store`, pure Rust) reads one object
of any object_store store by ranged get_opts, pinned at open by a head
request: If-Match with its ETag (and the ETag and size of every response
compared), else its version or modification time. A change is
RemoteError::FileChanged. object_store is async and Storage is not, so
the storage owns a small multi-threaded tokio runtime (two workers) and
blocks the calling thread on it; the ranges of one read_ranges call are
fetched concurrently (up to 8). From inside another tokio runtime it
refuses with RemoteError::Usage instead of blocking a worker, and it
shuts its runtime down in the background on drop so dropping it in async
code does not panic.

open_object(store, path, options) opens a file through a block cache
(first block prefetched); open_url accepts s3://, gs:// and az:// with
the `s3`, `gcs` and `azure` features, configured from the environment by
object_store's from_env builders. Those pull object_store's cloud clients
and aws-lc-rs (C), so they are opt-in; without them the URL is a clean
UnsupportedScheme error naming the feature.

Tests against object_store's in-memory and local-file stores (no cloud):
every fixture's transcript equals File::open's, a multi-block object is
fetched in coalesced block runs, an object replaced while open is an
error, and a missing object or a read from inside a runtime is a clean
error. ci-test.sh lints all backends, runs these tests (with s3 for its
URL parsing test) and checks object-store for C in the no-C step.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-09-26 17:15:06 -05:00

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# clawhdf5-remote
Read HDF5 files where they live — on an HTTP(S) server or in an object
store (S3, GCS, Azure) — with
[clawhdf5](../../README.md), without downloading them first.
```rust
let file = clawhdf5_remote::open_url("http://127.0.0.1:8000/data.h5")?;
let temps = file.dataset("/grid/temperature")?.read_f64()?;
```
The result is an ordinary `clawhdf5::File`: groups, datasets, attributes,
selections, variable-length data. Only the bytes an operation needs are
fetched, by `Range` requests, through a block cache.
## How it reads
- **Block cache** (`BlockCache`, mandatory for remote files; see
`docs/design/range-reads.md` §2): aligned blocks of 1 MiB by default, LRU
with a byte budget (64 MiB by default), the missing blocks of one read
fetched as runs of consecutive blocks (a gap of one block is fetched to
merge two runs), each request at most 8 MiB, the requests of one read in
parallel. A read that misses more than half the budget is not kept, so a
big dataset read does not evict the metadata. Readers on several threads
share one cache; a block is never fetched twice at once — a second reader
waits for the first one's request.
- **Opening costs one request**: a `GET` of the first block, whose
`Content-Range` gives the file's length. HDF5 files keep the superblock
and usually the root group's metadata there, so listing a small file
often needs nothing more.
- **Pinned to one version of the file**: a strong `ETag` is sent back as
`If-Match` (else `Last-Modified` as `If-Unmodified-Since`) and checked on
every response, as is the length. A file replaced while open is an error
(`RemoteError::FileChanged`), never a mix of old and new bytes. A server
with neither validator can only be checked by length;
`HttpOptions::require_validator` refuses it.
- **Servers that ignore `Range`** (answer `200` with the whole file) are
refused (`RemoteError::RangeNotSupported`) without reading the body,
unless `HttpOptions::allow_full_download` is set; then the file is
downloaded once and read from memory.
- **Retries**: connection failures, timeouts, `408`/`429`/`5xx` and bodies
that end early are retried with exponential backoff (3 retries, from
200 ms). Bodies are requested with `Accept-Encoding: identity`; an encoded
body is refused.
The zero-copy methods of `clawhdf5` (`read_raw_ref`, `read_*_zerocopy`,
`File::as_bytes`) borrow the whole file from memory, so they are errors
(`as_bytes` a panic; use `File::contiguous_bytes`) on a remote file.
## Features
| Feature | What | C code |
|---|---|---|
| `http` (default) | `http://` through `ureq`, no TLS | none |
| `https` | `https://` through rustls, ring provider, Mozilla roots | ring (C and assembly) |
| `object-store` | `ObjectStoreStorage` and `open_object` over any [`object_store`](https://docs.rs/object_store) store (in-memory, local files, or one you configure) | none |
| `s3`, `gcs`, `azure` | `s3://bucket/key`, `gs://bucket/key`, `az://container/key` in `open_url`, configured from the environment (`AWS_*`, `GOOGLE_*`, `AZURE_*`) as object_store's `from_env` builders read it | aws-lc-rs (object_store's cloud clients) |
The default build and `object-store` compile no C (`scripts/ci-test.sh`
checks both).
## Object stores
`object_store` is async; `Storage` is synchronous (parsing is CPU work).
`ObjectStoreStorage` owns a small tokio runtime (two worker threads) and
blocks the calling thread on it for each read, so it is read from ordinary
threads, several at once. From inside an async runtime it refuses
(`RemoteError::Usage`) rather than block a worker: read in
`tokio::task::spawn_blocking`. The object is pinned by its ETag
(`If-Match`, and compared on every response), else its version or
modification time, and its size. The ranges of one read are fetched
concurrently (up to 8).
```rust
use std::sync::Arc;
use clawhdf5_remote::object_store::{memory::InMemory, ObjectStore};
let store: Arc<dyn ObjectStore> = Arc::new(InMemory::new());
// ... put a file at "data.h5" ...
let (file, cache) = clawhdf5_remote::open_object(store, "data.h5", &Default::default())?;
```
The tests use object_store's in-memory and local-file stores; no cloud
account is needed. The cloud schemes are only built (and unit-tested for
URL parsing) in CI, not run against a real bucket.
## Counting requests
```rust
use clawhdf5_remote::{storage_for_url, Options};
let storage = storage_for_url(url, &Options::default())?;
let file = clawhdf5::File::open_storage(storage.clone())?;
// ... read ...
let s = storage.stats(); // requests, bytes_fetched, hits, misses, cached_bytes, ...
```
`cargo run -p clawhdf5-remote --example range_server -- DIR` serves a
directory with range support (the server the tests use), and
`cargo run -p clawhdf5-remote --example read_url -- URL [DATASET]` lists a
file and prints what it cost.