title: How to read variable-length strings with h5py
body: <p>I'm trying to use h5py to read an array of variable length strings from an HDF5 file created in C. For a simple example, I used the variable length string array example from the HDF5 group, h5ex_t_vlstringatt.c at <a href="https://support.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/examples/api-c.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://support.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/examples/api-c.html</a>. I compile with h5pcc  and the example program runs fine (it reads in the file it writes and prints out the contents).</p>
  
  <p>However, I just get an empty object in python; with a simple example program</p>
  
  <pre><code>import h5py                                                                      
  fnam = 'h5ex_t_vlstringatt.h5'                                                   
  data = h5py.File(fnam, 'r')                                                      
  print data['DS1']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;HDF5 dataset "DS1": shape None, type "&lt;i4"&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Also, I'm using an anaconda distribution of python that I just updated, so h5py is version ~2.8.</p>