RDF

Radeon data file library. Check the specification for details about the file format.

This repository contains the main library (amdrdf) as well as a few useful binaries:

• rdfm merges two files together (assuming they contain disjoint data)
• rdfi dumps information about a file (what chunks it contains, etc.)
• rdfg generates a chunk file from a JSON description (useful for testing)

Overview

RDF files consist of named chunks. You can think of a file as a list of chunks that you can index using a name. File formats are built on top of RDF by defining chunk names and chunk contents. If you need a new file format, all you need to agree on is a unique set of chunk names and you're good to go. Chunks can be optionally compressed and versioned, which removes the need for versioning whole files.

The same chunk can appear multiple times in a file. They'll get enumerated so it's perfectly fine to have a Mesh chunk for each mesh and simply add as often as needed. The full chunk identifier is the chunk name and the index. Chunks are always consecutively numbered in a file.

A chunk consists of a header and the data. The difference between those is that the header is always uncompressed and meant to contain only very little data (they might get all loaded in memory for instance). The data part can be optionally compressed.

There is a C and a C++ API. The C API is the "low level" API that is exported from the DLL/shared object. RDF also comes with a C++ wrapper that uses the C API to simplify usage.

Chunk files are assumed to be immutable, so the code is split into a ChunkFile class which represents the (immutable) file, and a ChunkFileWriter which can be used to create a new file. Additionally, RDF exposes a stream abstraction to allow reading/writing from disk, memory, or other sources.

Versioning

The amdrdf library provides the following forwards/backwards compatibility guarantees:

• For the same major version, any minor version will only add new entry points and enumeration values, but existing entry points will not change. Using a higher minor version is always safe. Files created by a newer library may not be compatible with older files if new features are used. For example, a new compression codec could be added as part of a minor API change as this is an extension only. However, as long as no new feature is used, all files produced by a newer minor version will remain compatible with older minor versions.
• New major versions may add, remove or change entry points. Files created by a newer major version may not be compatible with older major versions. Files created by an older major version will be supported for at least the next higher major version.
• A minor version can deprecate a function, but that function can be only removed in the next major release.
• From version 1.2 on, the ABI is also guaranteed to remain compatible between minor versions (i.e. 1.3 is a drop-in replacement for 1.2 and requires no recompilation.)

Use RDF_INTERFACE_VERSION and RDF_MAKE_VERSION to check for the library version.

Patch releases (for example, 1.1.1) will be bumped for bug fixes and other improvements.

Changelog

• 1.0: Initial release
• 1.1: Improve naming consistency: Add rdfStreamFromUserStream, mark rdfStreamCreateFromUserStream as deprecated
• 1.1.1: Fix rdfChunkFileContainsChunk returning rdfResultError when a chunk was not found instead of rdfResultOk
• 1.1.2:
  • Fix rdfChunkFileWriterWriteChunk, rdfChunkFileWriterEndChunk returning indices starting at 0 when in append mode instead of counting off the actual contents of the file
  • Fix rdfChunkFileWriterWriteChunk, rdfChunkFileWriterBeginChunk returning an error when using identifiers of the maximum allowed length (i.e. without a trailing null-terminator.) and a non-zero header pointer
  • Clients can now #define RDF_CHECK_CALL before including amdrdf.h to customize how errors are handled in the C++ bindings
  • Move constructors in the C++ bindings have been marked as noexcept
• 1.1.3:
  • Fix missing includes on GCC13
  • Update Zstd dependency from 1.4.5 to 1.5.5
• 1.2.0
  • Add support for VCPKG
    • The library can be now consumed via VCPKG
    • The build can optionally use VCPKG to fetch dependencies
  • Add a new Close callback function to rdfUserStream. This allows wrapped user streams to clean up the wrapped object, making it easier to track lifetime. ⚠️ This is an ABI breaking change.
• 1.3.0

  • Internal refactoring to the internal stream abstraction. It no longer exposes Seek() and Tell(). There's no change to user streams for now; but a future release will switch to a matching API or may expose a new user stream which doesn't expose Seek(), Tell(). If you're implementing a custom stream, you'll notice that every read and write operation will be preceded by a Seek() now.

    This also clarifies how stream wrapping works. Previously undocumented, but assumed, was that the stream was at position 0, and not modified outside. It was already a bug before if those conditions weren't true, but now it's actually documented.

  • Fix bug in rdfm which would incorrectly write the last chunk's data when merging an empty chunk.

  • Change validation for the rdfChunkFileReadChunk* read functions such that a nullptr for the buffer argument is valid if the requested size is 0. Previously, this would fail with an invalid argument error.

  • Remove support for VCPKG again. Unfortunately, the upstream port file has never been finished, and the relatively intrusive support added in 1.2 caused more problems than it solved. If there's interest in re-adding VCPKG support, please open an issue or PR.