NeL Misc

Owned by Matt Raykowski
Oct 11, 2012
2 min read

Introduction

The NeL Misc library contains all the core types, functionality and utilities necessary to use other NeL libraries.
It also includes a handful of handy utilities that don't belong in any of the other libraries.

Features

Core Functionality

  • Base data types.
  • Platform independent data type definitions such as sint32, uint32, etc.
  • Exception base class.
  • Debugging macros (assertions, debugging information, warnings, and more) with links to displayers.
  • Handy common routines and classes - math, string manipulation, etc.
  • Reference counting system with smart pointers.
  • Smart pointers free the data they point to when it is no longer referenced.
  • Unicode string management.
  • Displayer system which abstracts the displayer (which may be stdout, a file, a console window, etc.)
  • A log message management system based on displayers. Provides message filtering functionality and support for multiple simultaneous displayers.
  • The Class registry which allows instantiation of polymorphic classes by name

Portability

  • System information retrieval (retrieves info on the system OS, processor, RAM)
  • Generalized event management system (c/f windows) used for input (keyboard, mouse, etc.)
  • OS independent thread & mutex management with POSIX and Windows implementations.
  • System for management of internationally localized text.
  • OS independent time retrieval (retrieves time from local machine's clock.)

Miscellaneous 3D Primitives and Utilities

  • Bounding box and bounding sphere implementations with 1001 associated utility routines
  • Complete implementation of different formats of RGBA colour representations

Math

  • Quaternion classes for quaternion math.
  • Matrix classes for 3D math.
  • 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.

Memory Management

  • 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.

Serialization and Streams

  • Based on Java's Serialize.
  • Includes file version support, a mechanism that allows backward compatibility (with old data files.)
  • Supports serialization of: base types, classes composed of serializable types, STL containers of serializable types, pointers to serializable data (including a reference counting system which serializes the data that the pointer points to unless it has already been serialized by another pointer to the same data - At re-load time the pointers are fixed back up to point to the same data.)
  • Support for polymorphism (serialization of classes referenced by a pointer of their base class type.)
  • Binary memory stream, ASCII memory stream and binary file stream implementations.

Utilities

  • Functionality for loading and treating bitmaps of different formats.
  • A search path management system for locating data files.
  • A string/integer association system (useful for compacting message types)
  • A configuration file loading and management system capable of detecting changes to configuration files and reloading their contents without stopping and relaunching the program.
  • Manages variables of type string, integer, float, or an array of any of these.
  • A system for managing lists of functions referenced by a string and calling the appropriate command when passed a string. This system is handy for managing a command line at run time.
  • A system for queuing tasks for threads to process. This system is handy for things like background loading.
  • Complete implementation of arbitrary sized bit arrays.