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19 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
19 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
PhysicsFS is a library to provide abstract access to various
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archives. It is intended for use in video games, and the design
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was somewhat inspired by Quake 3's file subsystem. The programmer
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defines a "write directory" on the physical filesystem. No file
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writing done through the PhysicsFS API can leave that write directory,
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for security. For example, an embedded scripting language cannot
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write outside of this path if it uses PhysFS for all of its I/O,
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which means that untrusted scripts can run more safely. Symbolic
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links can be disabled as well, for added safety. For file reading,
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the programmer lists directories and archives that form a "search
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path". Once the search path is defined, it becomes a single,
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transparent hierarchical filesystem. This makes for easy access to
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ZIP files in the same way as you access a file directly on the
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disk, and it makes it easy to ship a new archive that will override
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a previous archive on a per-file basis. Finally, PhysicsFS gives
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you platform-abstracted means to determine if CD-ROMs are available,
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the user's home directory, where in the real filesystem your program
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is running, etc.
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