changing Irrlicht Source code...suggestion

Emil_halim · Post by **Emil_halim** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:43 am

Hi all

i have a suggestion for the users who have ideas that they want to apply to Irrlicht Engine.

instead of changing the Engine it self , you can make your iead in a class then we can add
it by includeing it in our source program, i mean as add on to engine.

this way if the user want to update ,change, or fix bug in the class, we have not to rechange the engine
source code and recompile it ,instead we will inclaud the new one.

it is just my own opinion, so what do you think?

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:59 am

Well, it's not always possible to put all changes into a new class without changing the original Irrlicht part. If you can do it would be even better to put all these additions into a new library to be able to use it without recompiling complete Irrlicht. Your classes provided until now in other threads were good examples where this approach works well. As I wrote in of of the threads it would be better to have a properly defined interface, though. This would be still possible with separate classes or llibraries.
Otherwise you may want to have a look at the patch facility available on most systems. It takes some changes to source code in a file and applies them even to rewritten parts of the code as long as the changes do not touch previously altered portions. You can remove these patches as well, and it's rather efficient to pass them to others since only the changes are kept in the files, and they can be safely applied to altered source (as mentioned before).
Check out http://parsys.informatik.uni-oldenburg. ... d/irrlicht for a number of patches and instructions how to use them.

Emil_halim · Post by **Emil_halim** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:10 pm

hybrid

it is really good work that you did, it will allow us to change the engine easly and
without conflict with each other.

note:
i see that you extract some patchs from Irrlicht ver 0.8 then you apply that to
Irrlicht ver 0.9, so does that means Niko did not automatically apply them to the
new ver. i think that is very strange.

any way i really want to thank you for your great work

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:59 pm

Emil_halim wrote: i see that you extract some patchs from Irrlicht ver 0.8 then you apply that to
Irrlicht ver 0.9, so does that means Niko did not automatically apply them to the
new ver. i think that is very strange.

any way i really want to thank you for your great work

Thanks a lot

The integration of patches into new releases is difficult. As I wrote mos of them are not thoroughly tested, e.g. I usually don't compile applications using the library, but only the library itself.
Moreover many larger changes do no adhere to the Irrlicht coding style as I extracted them form different sources. But I hope that it helps Niko in assessing the changes and applying them shortly after a release (Which would be easiest since problems are easier to track). Thus Irrlicht 0.10 might include some more patches from my page.

niko · Post by **niko** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 12:25 pm

That's right, and thanks for you work. Sorry that I'm a little bit slow.