Checked with h5py on a patched file:
- a VL string with an embedded NUL reads up to the NUL (libhdf5 converts
VL strings to C strings); read_vl_strings returned "a\0b";
- an element whose global heap object is not length x base size bytes is
an error ("Expected global heap object size does not match"); we
returned the object cut to the length;
- a heap address of 0 is a null element whatever its length.
vl_data::VlResolver does this, caching each parsed heap collection:
read_vl_strings parsed the whole collection again for every element.
read_vl_strings and read_vl_bytes use it; check_element_size refuses a VL
type whose stored element size is not 4 + offset size + 4. The
conformance probe resolves VL values through VlResolver instead of its
own lenient copy (575 of 697, unchanged).
The new unit tests fail against the old read_vl_strings.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
