[MOAB-dev] Reader/Writer filename extension access

[Tim Tautges]

Coupla comments:

- I can't think of why we'll want to pass back leaf-class pointers to readers/writers through the API; parent class 
pointers should suffice in all cases, I would think
- In most cases I think names of the reader/writer would be sufficient, and you could get those from ReaderWriterSet.

- tim

Jason Kraftcheck wrote:
> Robert Smith wrote:
>> On Apr 30, 2010, at 9:05 AM, Jed Brown wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:01:09 -0500, Robert Smith <smithrm at mcs.anl.gov>
>>> wrote:
>>>> What do you mean by "not part of the MOAB API"?  We can't dictate the
>>>> structure of the Readers/Writers?
>>> I think Jason's point was that it's unacceptable for client code to have
>>> a dependency on the implementations.
>> Do you mean the code that uses the Readers/Writers?  I would agree, it
>> should not depend on the implementation.  But does that mean no client
>> code can know which particular Reader/Writer it is using?  If that's
>> true then the entire purpose of the ticket seems moot.
> 
> No, the application needs to know the file format that it wants to
> read/write.  It does not need to have a pointer to the Reader/Writer
> instance in MOAB that implements that file format.  For example, why not
> instead have functions that return a list of string names for all the
> readers and writers, and then have functions that, given a string name,
> return the list of extensions or description.
> 
>> If that's not what you mean then I don't see how my suggestions open the
>> implementation to the users.  They are just new member functions.
>>
> 
> They require that we install headers for all the reader/writer
> implementations and that the app include those headers, effectively making
> all of the implementations part of the MOAB API.
> 
> - jason
> 

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              Tim Tautges            Argonne National Laboratory
          (tautges at mcs.anl.gov)      (telecommuting from UW-Madison)
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