19 lines
1.1 KiB
Text
19 lines
1.1 KiB
Text
|
PhysicsFS is a library to provide abstract access to various
|
||
|
|
archives. It is intended for use in video games, and the design
|
||
|
|
was somewhat inspired by Quake 3's file subsystem. The programmer
|
||
|
|
defines a "write directory" on the physical filesystem. No file
|
||
|
|
writing done through the PhysicsFS API can leave that write directory,
|
||
|
|
for security. For example, an embedded scripting language cannot
|
||
|
|
write outside of this path if it uses PhysFS for all of its I/O,
|
||
|
|
which means that untrusted scripts can run more safely. Symbolic
|
||
|
|
links can be disabled as well, for added safety. For file reading,
|
||
|
|
the programmer lists directories and archives that form a "search
|
||
|
|
path". Once the search path is defined, it becomes a single,
|
||
|
|
transparent hierarchical filesystem. This makes for easy access to
|
||
|
|
ZIP files in the same way as you access a file directly on the
|
||
|
|
disk, and it makes it easy to ship a new archive that will override
|
||
|
|
a previous archive on a per-file basis. Finally, PhysicsFS gives
|
||
|
|
you platform-abstracted means to determine if CD-ROMs are available,
|
||
|
|
the user's home directory, where in the real filesystem your program
|
||
|
|
is running, etc.
|