Provided by: libgetdata-doc_0.9.0-2.2_all 
NAME
gd_cbopen, gd_open — open or create a dirfile
SYNOPSIS
#include <getdata.h>
DIRFILE* gd_cbopen(const char *dirfilename, unsigned long flags, gd_parser_callback_t sehandler, void
*extra);
DIRFILE* gd_open(const char *dirfilename, unsigned long flags);
DESCRIPTION
The gd_cbopen() function opens or creates the dirfile specified by dirfilename, returning a DIRFILE ob‐
ject associated with it. Opening a dirfile will cause the library to read and parse the dirfile's format
specification (see dirfile-format(5)).
If not NULL, sehandler should be a pointer to a function which will be called whenever a syntax error is
encountered during parsing the format specification. Specify NULL for this parameter if no callback
function is to be used. The caller may use this function to correct the error or modify the error han‐
dling of the format specification parser. See The Callback Function section below for details on this
function. The extra argument allows the caller to pass data to the callback function. The pointer will
be passed to the callback function verbatim.
The gd_open() function is equivalent to gd_cbopen(), with sehandler and extra set to NULL.
The flags argument should include one of the access modes: GD_RDONLY (read-only) or GD_RDWR (read-write),
and may also contain zero or more of the following flags, bitwise-or'd together:
GD_ARM_ENDIAN
GD_NOT_ARM_ENDIAN
Specifies that double precision floating point raw data on disk are, or are not, stored in the
middle-endian format used by older ARM processors.
These flag only set the default endianness, and will be overridden when an /ENDIAN directive spec‐
ifies the byte sex of RAW fields, unless GD_FORCE_ENDIAN is also specified.
On every platform, one of these flags (GD_NOT_ARM_ENDIAN on all but middle-ended ARM systems) in‐
dicates the native behaviour of the platform. That symbol will equal zero, and may be omitted.
GD_BIG_ENDIAN
GD_LITTLE_ENDIAN
Specifies the default byte sex of raw data stored on disk to be either big-endian (most signifi‐
cant byte first) or little-endian (least significant byte first). Omitting both flags indicates
the default should be the native endianness of the platform.
Unlike the ARM endianness flags above, neither of these symbols is ever zero. Specifying both
these flags together will cause the library to assume that the endianness of the data is opposite
to that of the native architecture, whatever that might be.
These flag only set the default endianness, and will be overridden when an /ENDIAN directive spec‐
ifies the byte sex of RAW fields, unless GD_FORCE_ENDIAN is also specified.
GD_CREAT
An empty dirfile will be created, if one does not already exist. This will create both the
dirfile directory and an empty format specification file called format. If the call creates a
dirfile, then the specified access mode is ignored: a newly-created DIRFILE is always opened with
access mode GD_RDWR, even if GD_RDONLY had been specified.
The directory will have have mode S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO (0777), modified by the caller's
umask value (see umask(2)). The format file will have mode S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IWGRP
| S_IROTH | S_IWOTH (0666), also modified by the caller's umask. The owner of the dirfile direc‐
tory and format file will be the effective user ID of the caller. Group ownership follows the
rules outlined in mkdir(2).
GD_EXCL
Ensure that this call creates a dirfile: when specified along with GD_CREAT, the call will fail if
the dirfile specified by dirfilename already exists. If GD_CREAT is not specified, this flag is
ignored. This flag suffers from all the limitations of the O_EXCL flag as indicated in open(2).
GD_FORCE_ENCODING
Specifies that /ENCODING directives (see dirfile-format(5)) found in the dirfile format specifica‐
tion should be ignored. The encoding scheme specified in flags will be used instead (see below).
GD_FORCE_ENDIAN
Specifies that /ENDIAN directives (see dirfile-format(5)) found in the dirfile format specifica‐
tion should be ignored. All raw data will be assumed to have the byte sex indicated through the
presence or absence of the GD_ARM_ENDIAN, GD_BIG_ENDIAN, GD_LITTLE_ENDIAN, and GD_NOT_ARM_ENDIAN
flags.
GD_IGNORE_DUPS
If the dirfile format metadata specifies more than one field with the same name, all but one of
them will be ignored by the parser. Without this flag, parsing would fail with the GD_E_FORMAT
error, possibly resulting in invocation of the registered callback function. Which of the dupli‐
cate fields is kept is not specified. As a result, this flag is typically only useful in the case
where identical copies of a field specification line are present.
No indication is provided to indicate whether a duplicate field has been discarded. If finer
grained control is required, the caller should handle GD_E_FORMAT_DUPLICATE suberrors itself with
an appropriate callback function.
GD_PEDANTIC
Reject dirfiles which don't conform to the Dirfile Standards. See the Standards Compliance sec‐
tion below for full details.
GD_PERMISSIVE
Allow non-compliant format specification syntax, even when given along with a conflicting /VERSION
directive. See the Standards Compliance section below for full details.
GD_PRETTY_PRINT
When dirfile metadata are flushed to disk (either explicitly via gd_metaflush(3), gd_rewrite_frag‐
ment(3), or gd_flush(3) or implicitly by closing the dirfile), an attempt will be made to create a
nicer looking format specification (from a human-readable standpoint). What this explicitly means
is not part of the API, and any particular behaviour should not be relied on. If the dirfile is
opened read-only, this flag is ignored.
GD_TRUNC
If dirfilename specifies an already existing dirfile, it will be truncated before opening. Since
gd_cbopen() decides whether dirfilename specifies an existing dirfile before attempting to parse
the dirfile, dirfilename is considered to specify an existing dirfile if it refers to a directory
containing a regular file called format, regardless of the content or form of that file.
Truncation occurs by deleting every regular file and symlink in the specified directory, whether
the files were referred to by the dirfile before truncation or not. Accordingly, this flag should
be used with caution. Unless GD_TRUNCSUB is also specified, subdirectories are left untouched.
Notably, this operation does not consider directories used in /INCLUDE directives. If the dirfile
does not exist, this flag is ignored.
GD_TRUNCSUB
If specified along with GD_TRUNC, truncation will descend into subdirectories, deleting all regu‐
lar files and symlinks recursively. It does not descend into directories pointed to by symbolic
links: in these cases, just the symlink itself is deleted. If specified without an accompanying
GD_TRUNC, this flag is ignored.
GD_VERBOSE
Specifies that whenever an error is triggered by the library when working on this dirfile, the
corresponding error string, which can be retrieved by calling gd_error_string(3), should be writ‐
ten on the caller's standard error stream (stderr(3)) by GetData. The error string may be pre‐
fixed by a string specified by the caller; see gd_verbose_prefix(3). Without this flag, GetData
writes nothing to standard error. (GetData never writes to standard output.)
Those flags which affect the operation of the library beyond this call itself may be modified later using
the gd_flags(3) function.
The flags argument may also be bitwise or'd with one of the following symbols indicating the default en‐
coding scheme of the dirfile. Like the endianness flags, the choice of encoding here is ignored if the
encoding is specified in the dirfile itself, unless GD_FORCE_ENCODED is also specified. If none of these
symbols is present, GD_AUTO_ENCODED is assumed, unless the gd_cbopen() call results in creation or trun‐
cation of the dirfile. In that case, GD_UNENCODED is assumed. See dirfile-encoding(5) for details on
dirfile encoding schemes.
GD_AUTO_ENCODED
Specifies that the encoding type is not known in advance, but should be detected by the GetData
library. Detection is accomplished by searching for raw data files with extensions appropriate to
the encoding scheme. This method will notably fail if the the library is called via putdata(3) to
create a previously non-existent raw field unless a read is first successfully performed on the
dirfile. Once the library has determined the encoding scheme for the first time, it remembers it
for subsequent calls.
GD_BZIP2_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are compressed using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting text compres‐
sion algorithm and Huffman coding, as implemented in the bzip2 format.
GD_GZIP_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are compressed using Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77) as implemented in the
gzip format.
GD_LZMA_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are compressed using the Lempel-Ziv Markov Chain Algorithm (LZMA) as
implemented in the xz container format.
GD_SLIM_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are compressed using the slimlib library.
GD_SIE_ENCODED
Specified that raw data files are sample-index encoded, similar to run-length encoding, suitable
for data that change rarely.
GD_TEXT_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are encoded as text files containing one data sample per line.
GD_UNENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are not encoded, but written as simply binary data to disk.
GD_ZZIP_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are compressed using the DEFLATE algorithm. All raw data files for
a given fragment are collected together and stored in a PKZIP archive called raw.zip.
GD_ZZSLIM_ENCODED
Specifies that raw data files are compressed using a combinations of compression schemes: first
files are slim-compressed, as with the GD_SLIM_ENCODED scheme, and then they are collected togeth‐
er and compressed (again) into a PKZIP archive called raw.zip, as in the GD_ZZIP_ENCODED scheme.
Standards Compliance
The latest Dirfile Standards Version which this release of GetData understands is provided in the pre‐
processor macro GD_DIRFILE_STANDARDS_VERSION defined in getdata.h. GetData is able to open and parse any
dirfile which conforms to this Standards Version, or to any earlier Version. The dirfile-format(5) manu‐
al page lists the changes between Standards Versions.
The GetData parser can operate in two modes: a permissive mode, in which much non-Standards-compliant
syntax is allowed, and a pedantic mode, in which the parser adheres strictly to the Standards. The mode
made change during the parsing of a dirfile. If GD_PEDANTIC is passed to gd_cbopen(), the parser will
start parsing the format specification in pedantic mode, otherwise it will start in permissive mode.
Permissive mode is provided primarily to allow GetData to be used on dirfiles which conform to no single
Standard, but which were accepted by the GetData parser in previous versions. It is notably lax regard‐
ing reserved field names, and field name characters, the mixing of old and new data type specifiers, and
generally ignores the presence of /VERSION directives. In read-write mode, permissive mode should be
used with caution, as it can cause unintentional corruption of dirfile metadata on write, if the heuris‐
tics in the parser incorrectly guessed the intention of non-compliant syntax. In permissive mode, actual
syntax errors are still reported as such.
In pedantic mode, the parser conforms to one specific Standards Version. This target version may change
any number of times in the course of scanning a single format specification. If invoked using the
GD_PEDANTIC flag, the parser will start in pedantic mode with a target version equal to GD_DIRFILE_STAN‐
DARDS_VERSION. Whenever a /VERSION directive is encountered in the format specification, the target ver‐
sion is changed to the Standards Version specified. When encountering a /VERSION directive in permissive
mode, the parser will switch to pedantic mode, unless the GD_PERMISSIVE flag was passed to gd_cbopen(),
in which case no mode switch will take place.
Independent of the mode of the parser when parsing the format specification, GetData will calculate a
list of Standards Versions to which the parsed metadata conform to. The gd_dirfile_standards(3) function
can provide this information, and also specify the desired Standards Version for writing format metadata
back to disk.
The Callback Function
The caller-supplied sehandler function is called whenever the format specification parser encounters a
syntax error (i.e. whenever it would return the GD_E_FORMAT error). This callback may be used to cor‐
rect the error, or to tell the parser how to recover from it.
This function should take two pointers as arguments, and return an int:
int sehandler(gd_parser_data_t *pdata, void *extra);
The extra parameter is the pointer supplied to gd_cbopen(), passed verbatim to this function. It can be
used to pass caller data to the callback. GetData does not inspect this pointer, not even to check its
validity. If the caller needs to pass no data to the callback, it may be NULL.
The gd_parser_data_t type is a structure with at least the following members:
typedef struct {
const DIRFILE* dirfile;
int suberror;
int linenum;
const char* filename;
char* line;
size_t buflen;
...
} gd_parser_data_t;
The pdata->dirfile member will be a pointer to a DIRFILE object suitable only for passing to gd_er‐
ror_string(). Notably, the caller should not assume this pointer will be the same as the pointer eventu‐
ally returned by gd_cbopen(), nor that it will be valid after the callback function returns.
The pdata->suberror parameter will be one of the following symbols indicating the type of syntax error
encountered:
GD_E_FORMAT_ALIAS
The parent specified for a meta field was an alias.
GD_E_FORMAT_BAD_LINE
The line was indecipherable. Typically this means that the line contained neither a reserved
word, nor a field type.
GD_E_FORMAT_BAD_NAME
The specified field name was invalid.
GD_E_FORMAT_BAD_SPF
The samples-per-frame of a RAW field was out-of-range.
GD_E_FORMAT_BAD_TYPE
The data type of a RAW field was unrecognised.
GD_E_FORMAT_BITNUM
The first bit of a BIT field was out-of-range.
GD_E_FORMAT_BITSIZE
The last bit of a BIT field was out-of-range.
GD_E_FORMAT_CHARACTER
An invalid character was found in the line, or a character escape sequence was malformed.
GD_E_FORMAT_DUPLICATE
The specified field name already exists.
GD_E_FORMAT_ENDIAN
The byte sex specified by an /ENDIAN directive was unrecognised.
GD_E_FORMAT_LITERAL
An unexpected character was encountered in a complex literal.
GD_E_FORMAT_LOCATION
The parent of a metafield was defined in another fragment.
GD_E_FORMAT_META_META
An attempt was made to use a metafield as the parent to a new metafield.
GD_E_FORMAT_METARAW
An attempt was made to add a RAW metafield.
GD_E_FORMAT_MPLEXVAL
A MPLEX specification has a negative period.
GD_E_FORMAT_N_FIELDS
The number of fields of a LINCOM field was out-of-range.
GD_E_FORMAT_N_TOK
An insufficient number of tokens was found on the line.
GD_E_FORMAT_NO_FIELD
The parent of a metafield was not found.
GD_E_FORMAT_NUMBITS
The number of bits of a BIT field was out-of-range.
GD_E_FORMAT_PROTECT
The protection level specified by a /PROTECT directive was unrecognised.
GD_E_FORMAT_RES_NAME
A field was specified with the reserved name INDEX (or with the reserved name FILEFRAM in a
dirfile conforming to Standards Version 5 or earlier).
GD_E_FORMAT_UNTERM
The last token of the line was unterminated.
GD_E_FORMAT_WINDOP
The operation in a WINDOW field was not recognised.
pdata->filename and pdata->linenum members contains the pathname of the fragment and line number where
the syntax error was encountered. The first line in a fragment is line one.
The pdata->line member contains a copy of the line containing the syntax error. This line may be freely
modified by the callback function. It will then be reparsed if the callback function returns the symbol
GD_SYNTAX_RESCAN (see below). The size of the memory buffer (which may be greater than the length of the
actual string) is provided in pdata->buflen, and space is available for at least GD_MAX_LINE_LENGTH
bytes. A larger buffer may be used if desired, by assigning a pointer to the new buffer of the desired
length to pdata->line. The new buffer should be allocated with malloc(3). It will be freed by the pars‐
er. Do not call free(3) or realloc(3) on the original pointer passed to the callback as pdata->line: it,
too, will be freed by the parser.
The callback function should return one of the following symbols, which tells the parser how to subse‐
quently handle the error:
GD_SYNTAX_ABORT
The parser should immediately abort parsing the format specification and fail with the error
GD_E_FORMAT. This is the default behaviour, if no callback function is provided (or if the parser
is invoked by calling gd_open()).
GD_SYNTAX_CONTINUE
The parser should continue parsing the format specification. However, once parsing has finished,
the parser will fail with the error GD_E_FORMAT, even if no further syntax errors are encountered.
This behaviour may be used by the caller to identify all lines containing syntax errors in the
format specification, instead of just the first one.
GD_SYNTAX_IGNORE
The parser should ignore the line containing the syntax error completely, and carry on parsing the
format specification. If no further errors are encountered, the dirfile will be successfully
opened.
GD_SYNTAX_RESCAN
The parser should rescan the line argument, which replaces the line which originally contained the
syntax error. The line is assumed to have been corrected by the callback function. If the line
still contains a syntax error, the callback function will be called again.
Note: the line is not corrected on disk; however, the caller may subsequently correct the fragment
on disk by calling gd_rewrite_fragment(3).
The callback function handles only syntax errors. The parser may still abort early, if a different kind
of library error is encountered. Furthermore, although a line may contain more than one syntax error,
the parser will only ever report one syntax error per line, even if the callback function returns GD_SYN‐
TAX_CONTINUE.
RETURN VALUE
A call to gd_cbopen() or gd_open() always returns a pointer to a newly allocated DIRFILE object, except
in instances when it is unable to allocate memory for the DIRFILE object itself, in which case it will
return NULL. The DIRFILE object is an opaque structure containing the parsed dirfile metadata. If an
error occurred, the dirfile error will be set to a non-zero error value. The DIRFILE object will also be
internally flagged as invalid. Possible error values are:
GD_E_ACCMODE
The library was asked to truncate a dirfile opened read-only (i.e. GD_TRUNC was specified in
flags along with GD_RDONLY).
GD_E_ALLOC
The library was unable to allocate memory.
GD_E_BAD_REFERENCE
The reference field specified by a /REFERENCE directive in the format specification (see dirfile-
format(5)) was not found, or was not a RAW field.
GD_E_CALLBACK
The registered callback function, sehandler, returned an unrecognised response.
GD_E_CREAT
The library was unable to create the dirfile.
GD_E_EXISTS
The dirfile already exists and both GD_CREAT and GD_EXCL were specified.
GD_E_FORMAT
A syntax error occurred in the format specification. See also The Callback Function section
above.
GD_E_IO The dirfile format file, or another file that it includes, could not be opened, or dirfilename
does not specify a valid dirfile.
GD_E_LINE_TOO_LONG
The parser encountered a line in the format specification longer than it was able to deal with.
Lines are limited by the storage size of ssize_t. On 32-bit systems, this limits format specifi‐
cation lines to 2**31 bytes. The limit is larger on 64-bit systems.
The dirfile error may be retrieved by calling gd_error(3). A descriptive error string for the last error
encountered can be obtained from a call to gd_error_string(3). When finished with it, a caller should
de-allocate the DIRFILE object by calling gd_close(3), or gd_discard(3), even if the open failed.
BUGS
When working with dirfiles conforming to Standards Versions 4 and earlier (before the introduction of the
/ENDIAN directive), GetData assumes the dirfile has native byte sex, even though, officially, these early
Standards stipulated data to be little-endian. This is necessary since, in the absence of an explicit
/VERSION directive, it is often impossible to determine the intended Standards Version of a dirfile, and
the current behaviour is to assume native byte sex for modern dirfiles lacking /ENDIAN. To read an old,
little-ended dirfile on a big-ended platform, an /ENDIAN directive should be added to the format specifi‐
cation, or else GD_LITTLE_ENDIAN should be specified by the caller.
GetData's parser assumes it is running on an ASCII-compatible platform. Format specification parsing
will fail gloriously on an EBCDIC platform.
SEE ALSO
dirfile(5), dirfile-encoding(5), dirfile-format(5), gd_close(3), gd_dirfile_standards(3), gd_discard(3),
gd_error(3), gd_error_string(3), gd_flags(3), gd_getdata(3), gd_include(3), gd_parser_callback(3),
gd_verbose_prefix(3)
Version 0.9.0 16 October 2014 gd_cbopen(3)