On 10 January 2016 at 21:23, Mila= n Prochac (milan AT prochac DOT sk) [via <= a href=3D"mailto:geda-user AT delorie DOT com">geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <ge= da-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:

After reading long discussions about the new PCB file format I tried to im= plement support for multiple file=C2=A0 formats.

You can download it here: http://static.bastl.sk/p= cb/Modular-file-formats.gz It is also available on launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/pcb/+bug/1532611

The patch implements modular system to support multiple PCB file formats. A= ttached is also the template of the file-format plugin with instructions.
The patch is not too big, but it touches various parts of PCB, so it is pos= sible that some corner cases are not handled properly. Comments and bug rep= orts are welcome.

The modular system utilizes existing plugin system; new type of plugin is a= dded to support various file formats. This approach allows implementation o= f additional file formats as independent shared library with minimal effort= . The whole implementation of new file format is reduced to serialization a= nd de-serialization of PCBType data structure, no PCB tweaking is necessary= . The template with instructions is provided, as mentioned above.

- modular system is available for all layout operations (Load, Save, Save A= s, Load to buffer, Revert, auto-backup); the element operations will be add= ed later.
- action "SaveTo(LayoutAs..." was extended by 3rd argument, speci= fying file format; if omitted, current (or default) format is used
- GUI (GTK only at the moment) was adjusted to allow select file format; fo= r "save" operations it specifies desired format, for "open&q= uot; operations it is used as filter
- file format is detected automatically by modular framework
- the versioning system (based on PCB file version #defines) is available -= each plugin should confirm it's capability to save data of required ve= rsion (like 20110603); if not, the file format cannot be used
- load-only and save-only formats are supported. If save-only format is use= d, the layout is not marked as "saved".
- the current PCB format is converted to built-in plugin.

With this enhancement it should be very easy to implement new file formats.= If more of them will be available, the most successful can become new stan= dard PCB format and - hopefully -=C2=A0 the data model modifications will b= e not blocked by hard-to-extend file format anymore...

Regards
Milan