PHYSFS_Io - Man Page

An abstract i/o interface.

Synopsis

#include <physfs.h>

Data Fields

PHYSFS_uint32 version
Binary compatibility information.
void * opaque
Instance data for this struct.
PHYSFS_sint64(* read )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io, void *buf, PHYSFS_uint64 len)
Read more data.
PHYSFS_sint64(* write )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io, const void *buffer, PHYSFS_uint64 len)
Write more data.
int(* seek )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io, PHYSFS_uint64 offset)
Move i/o position to a given byte offset from start.
PHYSFS_sint64(* tell )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io)
Report current i/o position.
PHYSFS_sint64(* length )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io)
Determine size of the i/o instance's dataset.
struct PHYSFS_Io *(* duplicate )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io)
Duplicate this i/o instance.
int(* flush )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io)
Flush resources to media, or wherever.
void(* destroy )(struct PHYSFS_Io *io)
Cleanup and deallocate i/o instance.

Detailed Description

An abstract i/o interface.

Warning

This is advanced, hardcore stuff. You don't need this unless you really know what you're doing. Most apps will not need this.

Historically, PhysicsFS provided access to the physical filesystem and archives within that filesystem. However, sometimes you need more power than this. Perhaps you need to provide an archive that is entirely contained in RAM, or you need to bridge some other file i/o API to PhysicsFS, or you need to translate the bits (perhaps you have a a standard .zip file that's encrypted, and you need to decrypt on the fly for the unsuspecting zip archiver).

A PHYSFS_Io is the interface that Archivers use to get archive data. Historically, this has mapped to file i/o to the physical filesystem, but as of PhysicsFS 2.1, applications can provide their own i/o implementations at runtime.

This interface isn't necessarily a good universal fit for i/o. There are a few requirements of note:

...in short, you're probably not going to write an HTTP implementation.

Thread safety: PHYSFS_Io implementations are not guaranteed to be thread safe in themselves. Under the hood where PhysicsFS uses them, the library provides its own locks. If you plan to use them directly from separate threads, you should either use mutexes to protect them, or don't use the same PHYSFS_Io from two threads at the same time.

See also

PHYSFS_mountIo

Field Documentation

void(* PHYSFS_Io::destroy) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io)

Cleanup and deallocate i/o instance. Free associated resources, including (opaque) if applicable.

This function must always succeed: as such, it returns void. The system may call your flush() method before this. You may report failure there if necessary. This method may still be called if flush() fails, in which case you'll have to abandon unflushed data and other failing conditions and clean up.

Once this method is called for a given instance, the system will assume it is unsafe to touch that instance again and will discard any references to it.

Parameters

s The i/o instance to destroy.

struct PHYSFS_Io *(* PHYSFS_Io::duplicate) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io)

Duplicate this i/o instance. This needs to result in a full copy of this PHYSFS_Io, that can live completely independently. The copy needs to be able to perform all its operations without altering the original, including either object being destroyed separately (so, for example: they can't share a file handle; they each need their own).

If you can't duplicate a handle, it's legal to return NULL, but you almost certainly need this functionality if you want to use this to PHYSFS_Io to back an archive.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to duplicate.

Returns

A new value for a stream's (opaque) field, or NULL on error.

int(* PHYSFS_Io::flush) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io)

Flush resources to media, or wherever. This is the chance to report failure for writes that had claimed success earlier, but still had a chance to actually fail. This method can be NULL if flushing isn't necessary.

This function may be called before destroy(), as it can report failure and destroy() can not. It may be called at other times, too.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to flush.

Returns

Zero on error, non-zero on success.

PHYSFS_sint64(* PHYSFS_Io::length) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io)

Determine size of the i/o instance's dataset. Return number of bytes available in the file, or -1 if you aren't able to determine. A failure will almost certainly be fatal to further use of this stream, so you may not leave this unimplemented.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to query.

Returns

Total size, in bytes, of the dataset.

void* PHYSFS_Io::opaque

Instance data for this struct. Each instance has a pointer associated with it that can be used to store anything it likes. This pointer is per-instance of the stream, so presumably it will change when calling duplicate(). This can be deallocated during the destroy() method.

PHYSFS_sint64(* PHYSFS_Io::read) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io, void *buf, PHYSFS_uint64 len)

Read more data. Read (len) bytes from the interface, at the current i/o position, and store them in (buffer). The current i/o position should move ahead by the number of bytes successfully read.

You don't have to implement this; set it to NULL if not implemented. This will only be used if the file is opened for reading. If set to NULL, a default implementation that immediately reports failure will be used.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to read from.
buf The buffer to store data into. It must be at least (len) bytes long and can't be NULL.
len The number of bytes to read from the interface.

Returns

number of bytes read from file, 0 on EOF, -1 if complete failure.

int(* PHYSFS_Io::seek) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io, PHYSFS_uint64 offset)

Move i/o position to a given byte offset from start. This method moves the i/o position, so the next read/write will be of the byte at (offset) offset. Seeks past the end of file should be treated as an error condition.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to seek.
offset The new byte offset for the i/o position.

Returns

non-zero on success, zero on error.

PHYSFS_sint64(* PHYSFS_Io::tell) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io)

Report current i/o position. Return bytes offset, or -1 if you aren't able to determine. A failure will almost certainly be fatal to further use of this stream, so you may not leave this unimplemented.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to query.

Returns

The current byte offset for the i/o position, -1 if unknown.

PHYSFS_uint32 PHYSFS_Io::version

Binary compatibility information. This must be set to zero at this time. Future versions of this struct will increment this field, so we know what a given implementation supports. We'll presumably keep supporting older versions as we offer new features, though.

PHYSFS_sint64(* PHYSFS_Io::write) (struct PHYSFS_Io *io, const void *buffer, PHYSFS_uint64 len)

Write more data. Write (len) bytes from (buffer) to the interface at the current i/o position. The current i/o position should move ahead by the number of bytes successfully written.

You don't have to implement this; set it to NULL if not implemented. This will only be used if the file is opened for writing. If set to NULL, a default implementation that immediately reports failure will be used.

You are allowed to buffer; a write can succeed here and then later fail when flushing. Note that PHYSFS_setBuffer() may be operating a level above your i/o, so you should usually not implement your own buffering routines.

Parameters

io The i/o instance to write to.
buffer The buffer to read data from. It must be at least (len) bytes long and can't be NULL.
len The number of bytes to read from (buffer).

Returns

number of bytes written to file, -1 if complete failure.

Author

Generated automatically by Doxygen for physfs from the source code.

Referenced By

btrfs(5), foot.ini(5), tickit_term_flush(3), undocumented(3), xdf_open(3).

The man pages destroy(3), duplicate(3), flush(3), length(3), read(3), seek(3), tell(3) and write(3) are aliases of PHYSFS_Io(3).

Version 3.0.2 physfs