[Opensim-dev] OpenSim dll for use by other programs

Sat Mar 14 13:09:36 UTC 2009

I have on several occasions suggested the OpenSim.Model project approach, that would contain base data structures, as a base for any application that wants to interact or modify OpenSim data structures.

I think this could be done in steps with a minimum of architectural fussing about.

1) First thing would probably be to create the OpenSim.Model.Interfaces namespace (in the OpenSim.Model project) and just move any interface that doesn't reference any other types than system types or libomv types there. Just move those ther, plain and simple.

2) Second, we could start moving OpenSim base types, ie, extract abstract superclasses on all root classes containing only their data containers, and move them to OpenSim.Model. This should meet no problems, just moving them. There are excellent refactoring tools for this.

Third, we could have another round at a)

et c

this is a process that can be started today, and is more about code hygiene than architectural pridence.

at some point, we should probably establish the OpenSim.Framework.Serialization that would more or less only reference OpenSim.Model, which is used to contain all those classes and functions that are used to serialize base objects back and forth to various supported core formats.

Similarly, but not connected, I believe that a separate project, OpenSim.Services is the right way to go. It's the layer right above the application layer (which can't be generalized into one project, as each executable needs its own assembly)

Best regards,
Stefan Andersson
Tribal Media AB

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:50:51 -0700
From: diva at metaverseink.com
To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] OpenSim dll for use by other programs

Here's a suggestion.

We could have another project under OpenSim called
OpenSimLib
This would be a place for putting things that are meant to be used both by OpenSim and by other programs.
We could start with
OpenSimLib.Communications
OpenSimLib.Meshes

I suspect several data structures would move there.

But this raises the question about OpenSim.Framework -- is it supposed to be _that_ OpenSimLib? I see some of that, but it's mostly assuming that the "other programs", other than OpenSim.exe, are exactly the 5 U G A I M servers. I'm now thinking that clients (all sorts of clients) will want to use some of that too.

Yeah, maybe OpenSim.Framework is the right place to put this kind of code? What do you think? Should I move the sending side functions of RESTComms to OpenSim.Framework.Communications?

Diva Canto wrote: 
Cool, I'm glad to see there are more cases.
In my case, this piece of comm needs stuff from OpenSim.Framework (RegionInfo, AgentCircuitData) and other data structures from other places in opensim (Region.Framework.Scenes.AgentData), which is a bit of a mess that needs to be cleaned up too.

[RegionInfo, btw, is E.V.I.L -- I've wasted several hours over the past several months fighting with the ExternalEndPoint property. I always get it wrong. If we are to expose something like that to other fellow humans, I'll probably define another, much simpler, data structure.]

Dahlia Trimble wrote: 
I had a similar intention with Primmesher. Currently there is a primmesher.dll project on forge which is a dll containing the 2 files Primmesher.cs and Sculptmesh.cs. My intent was to have a single dll file which could be used by both OpenSim and viewer projects wishing to implement prims and sculpties. In order to make this a standalone dll I had to create internal types for quaternions and vectors, and the associated methods and operators. In this case it is a small duplication of code in other modules in OpenSim, but it's probably ok as I needed to extend those types while coding Primmesher anyway. The code on forge and in OpenSim are identical and one could easily delete those 2 files from OpenSim and just use the dll file from forge. This was my intent but I ran into some difficulties with prebuild.xml and the location of the dll file in the physics folder in the OpenSim tree, as it would not build successfully on some systems. So for now I am maintaining both source trees and keeping the code in sync.

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Diva Canto <diva at metaverseink.com> wrote:

I need more architectural advice.

I'm working on a client that has all the control over the agents. For
that, it uses the sending part of the RESTInterregionComms module that I
did a couple of months ago -- a module which now is clearly out of
place. That module is not about interregion comms; it's about comms
involving regions, but not necessarily *between* regions. In my case,
it's between the client and the region. I'm "using
OpenSim.Region.CoreModules.Communications.REST" in my client -- horrible.

So, I want to break it down into 2 parts, sending and receiving. The
question is: where should I place these two parts? The receiving part
can continue to be a region module in CoreModules -- that's perfectly
fine. But how about the sending part?

The sending part needs to be in a dll that can be used by other programs
out there, just like my client. This is, in fact, what will make OpenSim
interoperable from the  outside -- its use API, as opposed to the
wonderful extension API provided by region modules. Should these things
be in OpenSim.Framework.*? I was tempted to think so, but then I looked
at what's in there, and it's clearly facing the internals. Should it be
in OpenSim.Region.Communications.*?
OpenSim.Region.CoreModules.Communications.REST with sending and
receiving parts as separate modules? (but then the importers of this
will get all the other CoreModules as a dll, which doesn't feel right)

Your thoughts appreciated. Just think of what makes sense from a program
that wants to use OpenSim libraries.

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