misc

title: NeL Misc description: published: true date: 2023-03-16T22:54:47.191Z tags: editor: markdown dateCreated: 2019-11-26T05:42:01.653Z

The NeL Misc library contains all the core types, functionality and utilities necessary to use the Net, 3D or PACS libraries.

It also includes a handful of handy utilities that don't belong in any of the other libraries.

Handling Command Line Options (TODO)
Logging: Debugging macros (assertions, debugging information, warnings,...) linked to displayers
Log Displayer: Abstracted displayer system (may be stdout, a file, a console window, etc.)
Custom Logging: Support for multiple simultaneous log displayers.
Custom Log Displayer: Create your own log displayer
Log filtering functionality
Console Commands: This system is handy for managing a command line at run time
Console Variables
Basic Debugging
Using Config Files: A configuration file system capable of detecting and reloading changes to configuration

Serialization
File and Path Management: A Search path management system for locating data files
Creating and Using Big Files
Creating and Using XML Packs
Class Registry: The Class registry which allows instantiation of polymorphic classes by name

Base data types, platform independent data type definitions such as sint32, uint32, etc., and exception base classes
System information retrieval (retrieves info on the system OS, processor, RAM)
Application Contexts
Library Loading
Timing Systems: OS independent time retrieval (retrieves time from local machine's clock)

Events and Managing Input: Generalised event management system (c/f windows) used for input (keyboard, mouse, etc)
Threading: OS independent thread & mutex management with POSIX and Windows implementations
A system for queuing tasks for threads to process. This system is handy for things like background loading

Quaternion classes for quaternion maths
Matrix classes for 3D maths
2D and 3D vector classes in integer, single precision and double precision float implementations
Plane class with associated functionality - projection of vector onto plane, polygon or line segment clipping against plane, etc.
Bounding box and bounding sphere implementations with 1001 associated utility routines

Reference counting system with smart pointers
Block and pool based memory managers for minimisation of memory fragmentation
A Fifo manager that houses arbitrary non-uniform sized data blocks. The fifo size is dynamic but memory allocation and liberation is minimal.
Complete implementation of arbitrary sized bit arrays

These samples illustrate the usage of the Misc library.

command: How to create commands and execute them using ICommand class. It's a generic system to create and execute commands at run time. (It is used in all services, Snowballs client and so on.)
configfile: How to use a NeL configuration file. (This system is used in all services, snowballs client...).
debug: How to use basic debug features that are used everywhere in NeL.
i18n: How to use text internationalisation.
log: Use the log and displayer system that is a generic way to generate output (on screen, file...).
strings: Basic program to check if NeL types are valid.
types_check: Basic program to check if NeL types are valid.