Hard coded block config

[Septaris]

For the moment blocks config data are hard coded in blueprintutils.py. I suggest to use the config files (BlockConfig.xml and BlockTypes.properties) to fetch directly starmade data. This will allow to be always up to date with the latest starmade IDs/version while removing a lot of tedious code. (see the pull request)

[p-hofmann]

I agree it is ugly. The thought behind StarMade independent block ids was to prevent a single format change rendering SMBEdit useless. I have been considering an optional argument to read the configuration file and was so far to lazy to write a parser. I have a version 0.1.1 done, but I will consider adding your module BlockConfig for 0.1.2 after I had a look at it.

If it works out and I can not longer bear looking at the hard coded mess I probably make it mandatory.

[Septaris]

You've already done a lot of work to parse Starmade blueprint^^ I hope your library will become the python reference api to read starmade BP.

The BlockConfig parser is written in python 3 style but the only difference with python 2 is the metaclass definition (easily editable)

[p-hofmann]

Thanks, There are still quite a few secrets I have not figured out yet. The parsing of a block orientation is still guesswork for the most part. And while SMBEdit is finally able to parse the data in a meta file, it is s still anyones guess what the data there means, mostly.

I see the Starmade config file was made part of the repository. Do you have any experience with copyright law? I do not have any, that is one reason I choose against that. But if someone trustworthy could confirm that it would be no issue, it might be an option!

[p-hofmann]

I have added and modified the BlockConfig module a little: 60a035284a6c899d68f1122db6e658f24f1fa38c It still needs a bit of work before it can replace the hard coded stuff.

[Septaris]

Nice. Just be carefull with the metaclass, it's not a simple inheritance. The python 2 equivalent of :

# Python 3
class BlockConfig(object, metaclass=MetaBlockConfig):
    pass

is

# Python 3
class BlockConfig(object):
    __metaclass__ = MetaBlockConfig
    pass

For a code compatible with both python 2 and 3 you have to use the future library (pip install future) and write:

# Both python 2 and 3
from future.utils import with_metaclass
class BlockConfig(with_metaclass(MetaBlockConfig, object)):
    pass

[p-hofmann]

I only tried to keep functionality, but kept the class name. I will rename it to prevent confusion. Would be best to avoid special libraries to keep it simple for people.

[Septaris]

Unfortunately the future library is the only way to have python 2/3 compatibility. In any case, it is possible to create an .exe (and equivalent for linux / mac) using pyinstaller for example. And in this way, users do not have to worry about dependencies.

[p-hofmann]

To have it work identical in both, yes. But most common things have simple workarounds or will get the identical result in any case. The 'metaclass' is the one thing I would like to use but can not think of a workaround. Is there something else that would make difficulties, what specific makes you think it is absolutely required?

[Septaris]

There is a guide here that shows how to develop code that works on both python 2 and python 3 without six/future. But it's very restrictive (no metaclass, verbose syntax, different behavior for python 2 and 3 which can lead to bugs).

I think the fact that the code requires pip will not prevent python users to use SMBEdit. However, on Windows Python is not available by default. That's why I have integrated the possibility of generating an executable in the p2p3 branch. Thanks to this, Windows users can use SmBEdit without python.

[p-hofmann]

Good list. It would certainly be risky, without unit tests. Originally I had no plans to make it public, I would have written it in java otherwise.