[sword-devel] Working on a STEP Reader for SWORD

[Trandahl, Steve]

Paul,
	I did successfully decompress some of the text, thanks in part to
your help.  I posted a message describing my next step (no pun intended) on
Jun 23.  Basically,  I want to start figuring out how to create a STEP class
that works the same as the existing Rawtext class.  However, my old Windows
C++ compiler doesn't have the list class required to compile the Rawtext
class.

	So right now, I'm at the beginning of a steep learning curve -- I'm
trying to figure out how to compile the code under Linux.  Since I'm
basically a WIMP (I like Windows, Icons, Mice and Pull-down menus ;-) ),
I've never had to deal with a command-line compiler and make files. This
will take a little while.

	If anyone can provide any information that would speed up the
process, I'd appreciate it.  I'd like information on compiling under Linux
or on compiling the Windows version of SWORD. Ideally, I would like to know
how to compile one of the complete programs that use SWORD so that I can see
how they use the existing classes and start substituting an equivalent STEP
class.

	God's been good so far.  I'll get there one way or another.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gear [mailto:paulgear@bigfoot.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 5:40 AM
To: sword-devel@crosswire.org
Subject: Re: [sword-devel] Working on a STEP Reader for SWORD


"Trandahl, Steve" wrote:
> 
> This is stretching my rusty C++ skills.  If I am reading the code
correctly,
> calling the zBuf method suggested below will compress the text into the
> compressed buffer.  However, the text I'm reading from the STEP files is
> already compressed.  I guess I want to put the text directly into the
> compressed buffer without altering it.
> 
> Are there any suggestions as to how to set this up?  I thought about
> overriding the zBuf method to skip the compression, but then there would
be
> no way to compress using this class.
> 
> Thanks,
> Steve
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Troy A. Griffitts [mailto:scribe@crosswire.org]
> Sent: Friday, June 02, 2000 8:10 PM
> To: sword-devel@crosswire.org
> Subject: Re: [sword-devel] Working on a STEP Reader for SWORD
> 
> Steve,
>         It's not a bad as others might suggest.  We do have STEP
> decompression
> classes.  You will find them under
> sword/src/modules/common/lzsscomprs.cpp
> 
> a convoluted example of using this class can be found in
> sword/tests/complzss
> 
> A you will probably use the buffer methods to send chunks of a STEP
> module for decompression, eg.
> 
> // set compressed buffer to the lzss compression class
> compress.zBuf(blockSize, compressedBuf);
> 
> // ask the compression class for the decompressed buffer
> cout << "Decompressed text: " << compress.Buf();
> 
> Hope this gives ya a start.  The STEP spec will tell you that umpteen
> bytes at the beginning of the index files tell you meta data and then
> you'll start getting to real data blocks eventually.  Try sending one of
> these data blocks to the compress class and you should get plain text
> data back (well STEP's RTF+ markup with data).  You will then want to
> visit our filter collection:
> 
> sword/src/modules/filters/
> 
> These filters are used for parsing different markup methodologies.  We
> have some for rtf, gbf, html, etc.  You might be able to start with one
> of these and see if you can get some basic text to display.
> 
>         Please feel free to ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS! :)
> ...

Steve,

Any luck on getting things to decompress yet?

Paul
---------
"He must become greater; i must become less." - John 3:30
http://www.bigfoot.com/~paulgear