On 18.12.2015 13:55, Mark Roszko wrote: > Writing a new state machine for every single list and every single > file over and over again is the part I have problems with. There > should be a single state machine that takes the tokens and gives you a > list. Not 500 over the whole codebase.
Hi Mark, May I add my 5 cents to this discussion... - My only big concern with the current parser so far is the lexer code generation done by CMake. I'm not a big fan of making scripts that produce code which then gets compiled... Anyway, since we got here, I have a devilish idea: why a text format at all? Of course we are not going to change the format again (we have a lot of more exciting things to do ;-), but to point out a few reasons: - PCB files (as opposed to netlists) represent graphical objects. For someone looking at a PCB file with a text editor, it's just meaningless numbers. Diffs look equally horrible (just look at a diff between two .kicad_pcb files after moving a couple of traces in P&S mode). - binary formats are generally easier to parse (unless someone made it deliberately difficult - but it's not our case). We could just serialize objects directly to a binary file, along with some version info (think of Google's protobuf). This would also let us implement introspection (e.g. a property editor tool) for no extra cost. - Our s-expr format needs a custom parser (correct me if I'm wrong), which contradicts the idea that generic text formats (e.g. json/lisp s-expr, even lua/python arrays) need no dedicated parsers. - Last but not least (and surely not least controversial): file format that is easy to hand-edit enables people to hack scripts that do stuff that Kicad is currently missing. This is an advantage for some (perhaps more advanced) users who can work around missing features this way, but is it really beneficial for Kicad as a complete PCB design tool? If the easiest way is to hack a PCB file with a perl script/text editor, what motivation is left to implement the missing feature in Kicad? Cheers, Tom _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
