Re: [Autorealm-develop] XML

[zifnabbe <zif...@us...>]

Hi John,

Thanks!
I hope you meant .AuSX instead of .AuRS

I've made a very small change to the code, which was something that
annoyed me.
Now, when calling Save As, the previous name is set as default. This
makes it easy to convert a map from .AuR to .AuRX.

Regards,
Tom.

John wrote:
> Sorry for the late reply.  I've been busy with some other projects,
> but I've
> been contemplating switching back to working on AutoREALM...
>
> 1. Added XML support for .AuRX map files and .AuRS symbol files.
> Whenever a
> symbol is added, changed, etc., the symbol set is saved as an .AuRS
> file.
>
> 2. Implemented object caching to accommodate the additional memory
> requirements
> of XML support.
>
> When I added XML support I found that the XML tree can take an
> *enormous*
> amount of RAM, to such a degree that large maps (e.g. Femora) were
> causing my
> PC to run out of memory!  The solution was to optimize the XML format
> and to
> implement object caching.
>
> When the program loads a standard .AuR map, it checks it for objects
> with the
> same "shape".  This is done with a series of IsSimilarTo() virtual
> methods.  If
> two objects are found that are essentially the same, it only saves a
> complete
> version of the object once (the "base" object) and creates an alias
> for each
> additional copy.  An example is the mountains in Femora.AuR: they are
> all the
> same shape, so it only needs to store the polyline for it once, and
> only needs
> to remember the positions of any additional copies.
>
> The basic mechanism for all of this uses two objects: Base and
> Copies.  EVERY
> AUTOREALM OBJECT HAS THEM.  Base is a pointer to the "base" object
> that
> contains all of the shape information.  For a polyline, it points to
> the
> instance that actually contains the list of points.  If an object is
> itself the
> base object for a group of identical objects, then its Base value is
> Nil.
>
> Copies is a TStringList that contains a list of draw objects that are
> copies of
> the base object.  For instance, if you have a base polyline object,
> its Copies
> list will contain a list of pointers to all other draw objects that
> are
> identical (but are at different positions).  Likewise, in each of
> those alias
> objects, the Copies list will be empty, since they aren't base objects
> themselves. Instead, those objects will have X and Y coordinates that
> specify
> where they are located.
>
> I had to modify just about every method that deals with draw objects
> to
> implement this mechanism, and I took care to document my code as much
> as I
> could.  Whenever maps are saved as XML .AuRX maps the base/alias
> information is
> preserved, so it only has to be generated when an old-style .AuR map
>  is loaded. It causes .AuR maps to take a little longer to load, but
> .AuRX maps load very
> quickly and can take a lot less room in terms of RAM and disk space.
>
> =====
> "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short
> phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if
> it stops moving, subsidize it."
>
> - Ronald Reagan
>
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