File I/O

Schim currently supports a custom XML file format for storing projects, sheets, headers and objects. We are planning to support using DXF files as the source files for symbols. However, the XML format will remain the officially supported format.

The idea is to make the format human-readable as much as possible. This allows for tweaks to the files using any text editor. That way, you are not confined to merely the features that Schim provides. Another benefit of this approach is the ability to use git to its full potential.

XML

src/fileio/xml.h, src/fileio/xml.cpp

For information on how an XML file is structured, see XML in the user manual.

Functions

They are grouped into parse and write functions. Because objects can be defined as child tags of a parent tag or as a standalone document, there can be two versions of the parse function for each type of object. To explain how the XML interface works, let's look at the parser for Header for example.

Header *xmlParseHeader(QXmlStreamReader &stream)

Header *xmlParseHeader(const QString &filename)

The first version takes an XML stream as its argument and extracts the header from there. The function assumes that the stream will be at the start of the header element after stream.readNext() is called. Otherwise, an exception is thrown.

The second version takes a file name as its argument. The specified file contains the header element. This version opens the file for reading and constructs an XML stream. Then it calls the first version of the function to process the stream.

Todo

Explain the necessary steps to add a new parser/writer