[Libguestfs] hivexml rewrite

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 04:22:07PM -0700, Alex‎ Nelson wrote:
> I've been working on implementing the changes to hivexml Simson
> noted in this old thread.  Some of the changes could go into the
> hivex project as it is now (e.g. I've corrected the time
> calculations).

It's better to send small patches early, so we don't get any big
surprises later on.

> Some are substantial revisions to the output XML
> (not just element names), which by silent vote doesn't seem like a
> big deal.  However, I have one major revision that is difficult to
> implement (for me, at least) while preserving the multiple language
> bindings.  I admire the project for having such diverse language
> support, but I have to change some of the "visitor" function
> prototypes and that is making development difficult.  (My changes
> are adding a few structs to track data offsets.)

Do you mean the "hivex_visit" and "hivex_visit_node" functions?  These
are only supported from C.  Maybe I'm missing something?

BTW we have to preserve C ABI, so be careful about how you change any
C functions.  It should be possible to extend the hivex_visitor struct
without changing the C ABI (this is what the 'len' argument is for).

> How important is it to the hivex project that all of the language
> bindings remain?  If I were to just not develop for, e.g., Perl and
> OCaml, would it be better to call the revised program "hivex" still,
> or should the version I'm developing just fork into a slimmer
> project?

It's very important that all the languages be preserved.  However I
don't understand what the problem with visitor functions is, so ...

Rich.

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