amorilia / pyffi

Installation
------------

python setup.py install

Overview
--------

The general philosophy of the library is to supply all information
that comes naturally from files, and nothing more. For very common
calculations, some functions might be added, to make life easier
for importers and exporters. Specialized functions are implemented as
tools (typically, as scripts) rather than as part of the library.

You can specify an alternate location of your xml file, for instance cgf.xml,
by setting the CGFXMLPATH environment variable to the directory where
cgf.xml can be found. If CGFXMLPATH is set, the library will first
look there. The same applies to all other formats.

The code is organized as follows.

* Python File Format Interface - representing a file format specified by an XML
  file in Python

  - PyFFI/__init__.py

    Contains the main metaclass which generates classes for each type
    defined in the XML.

  - PyFFI/XmlHandler.py

    The XML handler, contains the core code that transforms the XML
    file into classes. The parser code is based on NifSkope's XML
    parser (see http://niftools.sourceforge.net).

  - PyFFI/Bases/*

    All base classes for various classes generated by the
    XmlFileFormat metaclass, i.e. basic and struct. Also contains
    the implementation of array's and the expression parser.

* CGF Format Library - instanciates classes, and customize them

  - PyFFI/CGF/__init__.py: instanciates classes for the CGF format

  - PyFFI/CGF/*.py: customization of particular blocks

* NIF Format Library - similar to CGF

* Utilities

  - PyFFI/Utils/__init__.py: collection of random small utilities

    + hexDump: dump file chunk in hexadecimal format

    + walk: a variant of os.walk()

    + TriStrip: stripifier utilities (uses a Python port of NvTriStrip)

    + MathUtils: common vector and matrix operations

    + QuickHull: a simple implementation of the 2d and 3d quick hull
      algorithms

    + Inertia: a library for calculating mass, center of gravity, and inertia
      tensor of common shapes

  - tools/NIF and tools/CGF: format specific scripts and helper modules

    + niftoaster and cgftoaster: for hacking nif and cgf files

    + ffvt3rskinpartition: skin partition calculator for Freedom Force vs. The
      3rd Reich

    + nifvisualizer: visualizes particular blocks of a nif file

    + nifmakehsl: create hex workshop structure libraries for all nif formats

    + nifoptimize: remove redundant vertices and restripify nif files

  - tools/qskopelib: modules used by QSkope (PyFFI's GUI application)

The following code resides in the subversion trunk only
(https://pyffi.svn.sf.net/svnroot/pyffi/trunk) and is not distributed
with the library.

* tests

  - rundoctest.py: runs all tests in the documentation

* examples

  - examples/metaclass_simple.py

    Proof of concept of how classes can be generated from an xml
    description. I keep it there as it could be useful to get a quick
    idea of how the XML is converted to a bunch of classes.

* www

  - script for generating epydoc documentation