From 98d4f0e14aee651ca81dbc406fe6d3e88add19a1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benjamin Jelley <benjamin.p.jelley@nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2026 16:33:53 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] fixed length str attrs

---
 pointCollection/data.py | 8 ++++++--
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/pointCollection/data.py b/pointCollection/data.py
index 4324296..eafde7c 100644
--- a/pointCollection/data.py
+++ b/pointCollection/data.py
@@ -874,7 +874,8 @@ def to_h5(self, fileOut, replace=True,  group='/', extensible=True,
                 for key, val in meta_dict[out_field].items():
                     if key.lower() not in ['group','source_field','precision','dimensions','coordinate']:
                         if isinstance(val, str):
-                            h5f_out[out_field_name.encode('ASCII')].attrs[key] = str(val).encode('utf-8')
+#                            h5f_out[out_field_name.encode('ASCII')].attrs[key] = str(val).encode('utf-8')
+                            h5f_out[out_field_name.encode('ASCII')].attrs.create(str(key), str(val).encode('utf-8'), None, dtype='<S'+str(len(str(val))))
                         else:
                             h5f_out[out_field_name.encode('ASCII')].attrs[key] = val
             if 'coordinates' in meta_dict[out_field]:
@@ -888,7 +889,10 @@ def to_h5(self, fileOut, replace=True,  group='/', extensible=True,
 
         for key, val in self.attrs.items():
             if val is not None:
-                h5f_out[group].attrs[key]=val
+                if isinstance(val, str):
+                    h5f_out[out_field_name.encode('ASCII')].attrs.create(str(key), str(val).encode('utf-8'), None, dtype='<S'+str(len(str(val))))
+                else:
+                    h5f_out[group].attrs[key]=val
 
         for key in ['EPSG','SRS_proj4']:
             val=getattr(self, key)