Hacking

=Freeciv Hacker's Guide=
This guide had been copied from the freeciv source code repository to wiki 2007, and has not been consistently refreshed with the master copy since. The master copy maintained together with the code is better in the sense that it aims to be accurate for the specific version it ships with - even if this one was updated to match some recent version, it would not be accurate for the others.
This guide is intended to be a help for developers, wanting to mess with Freeciv program. 
Here and there, you'll see some indented comments in italics, containing more personal thoughts on the design, why it looks like it does, and sometimes what went wrong. I hope developers will find that interesting too.
To read about the AI, see README.AI
==Basic==
Freeciv is a client/server civilization style of game. The client is pretty dumb. Almost all calculations are performed on the server.
:It wasn't like this always. Originally more code was placed in the common/ dir, allowing the client to do some of the world updates itself. The end_of_turn city-refresh was for example performed both on the server and on the client. However things got quite complex, more and more info was needed on the client-side(security problem). Little by little we moved more code to the server, and as of 1.5 the client is quite dumb -PU
The source code has the following important directories:
*common: data structures and code used by both the client and server.
*server: (duh)
*client: common client code
*client/* (fx gui-gtk): a specific gui implementation of the client.
*data: graphics, rulesets and stuff
*po: translations
*ai: the ai, later linked into the server.
Freeciv is written in C. Header files should be compatible with C++ so that C++ add-ons (particularly new clients) are possible. See the CodingStyle file for more.
==Server==
General:
The server main loop basically looks like
 while(server_state==RUN_GAME_STATE) { /* looped once per turn */
 do_ai_stuff(); /* do the ai controlled players */
 sniff_packets(); /* get player requests and handle them */
 end_turn(); /* main turn update */
 game_next_year();
 }
Most time is spend in the sniff_packets() function, where a select() call waits for packets or input on stdin(server-op commands).
==Server Autogame Testing==
Code changes should always be tested before submission for inclusion into the svn source tree. It is useful to run the client and server as autogames to verify either a particular savegame no longer shows a fixed bug, or as a random sequence of games in a while loop overnight.
To start a server game with all AI players, create a file (below named civ.serv) with lines such as the following:
 # set gameseed 42 # repeat a particular game (random) sequence
 # set mapseed 42 # repeat a particular map generation sequence
 # set timeout 3 # run a client/server autogame
 set timeout -1 # run a server only autogame
 set minplayers 0 # no human players needed
 set aifill 7 # fill to 7 players
 hard # make the AI do complex things
 create Caesar # first player (with known name) created and 
 # toggled to AI mode
 start # start game
Note: The server prompt is unusable when game with timeout set to -1 is running. You can stop such game with single ctrl+c, and continue by setting timeout to -1 again.
The commandline to run server-only games can be typed as variations of:
 $ while( time server/civserver -r civ.serv ); do date; done
 --- or ---
 $ server/civserver -r civ.serv -f buggy1534.sav.gz
To attach one or more clients to an autogame, remove the "start" command, start the server program and attach clients to created AI players. Or type "aitoggle <player>" at the server command prompt for each player that connects. Finally, type "start" when you are ready to watch the show.
Note, that the server will eventually flood a client with updates faster than they can be drawn to the screen, thus it should always be throttled by setting a timeout value high enough to allow processing of the large update loads near the end of the game. 
The autogame mode with timeout -1 is only available in DEBUG versions and should not be used with clients as it removes virtually all the server gating controls.
==Data Structures==
For variable length list of fx units and cities freeciv uses a genlist, which is implemented in common/genlist.c. By some macro magic type specific macros have been defined, avoiding much trouble. For example a tile struct (the pointer to it we call ptile) has a unit list, ptile->units; to iterate though all the units on the tile you would do the following:
 unit_list_iterate(ptile->units, punit) {
 /* In here we could do something with punit, which is a pointer to a
 unit struct */
 } unit_list_iterate_end;
Note that the macro itself declares the variable punit. Similarly there is a
 city_list_iterate(pplayer->cities, pcity) {
 /* Do something with pcity, the pointer to a city struct */
 } city_list_iterate_end;
There are other operations than iterating that can be performed on a list; inserting, deleting, sorting etc. See Note that the way the *_list_iterate macro is implemented means you can use "continue" and "break" in the usual manner.
One thing you should keep in the back of your mind: Say you are iterating through a unit list, and then somewhere inside the iteration decide to disband a unit. In the server you would do this by calling wipe_unit(punit), which would then remove the unit node from all the relevant unit lists. But by the way unit_list_iterate works, if the removed unit was the following node unit_list_iterate will already have saved the pointer, and use it in a moment, with a segfault as the result. To avoid this, use unit_list_iterate_safe instead.
You can also define your own lists with operations like iterating; read how in .
==Network and Packets==
The basic netcode is located in and .
All information passed between the server and clients, must be sent through the network as serialized packet structures. These are defined in .
For each 'foo' packet structure, there is one send and one receive function:
 int		 send_packet_foo	(struct connection *pc,
 					 struct packet_foo *packet);
 struct packet_foo * receive_packet_foo	(struct connection *pc);
The send_packet_foo() function serializes a structure into a bytestream and adds this to the send buffer in the connection struct. The receive_packet_foo() function de-serializes a bytestream into a structure and removes the bytestream from the input buffer in the connection struct. The connection struct is defined in .
Each structure field in a structure is serialized using architecture independent functions such as dio_put_uint32() and de-serialized with functions like dio_get_uint32().
A packet is constituted by header followed by the serialized structure data. The header contains the following fields:
 uint16	:	length		(the length of the entire packet)
 uint8	:	type		(e.g. PACKET_TILE_INFO)
To demonstrate the route for a packet through the system, here's how a unit disband is performed:
# A player disbands a unit.
# The client initializes a packet_unit_disband structure, and calls the packet layer function send_packet_unit_disband() with this structure and packet type: PACKET_UNIT_DISBAND.
# The packet layer serializes the structure, wraps it up in a packet containing the packet length, type and the serialized data. Finally the data is send to the server.
# On the server the packet is read. Based on the type, the corresponding de-serialize function is called by get_packet_from_connection().
# A packet_unit_disband is initialized with the bytestream.
# Since the incoming packet is a request (a request in this context is every packet sent from the client to the server) the server sends a PACKET_PROCESSING_STARTED packet to the client.
# Finally the corresponding packet-handler, handle_unit_disband() function, is called with the newly constructed structure.
# The handler function checks if the disband request is legal (is the sender really the owner of the unit) etc.
# The unit is disbanded => wipe_unit() => send_remove_unit().
# Now an integer, containing the id of the disbanded unit is wrapped into a packet along with the type PACKET_REMOVE_UNIT: send_packet_unit_remove().
# The packet is serialized and send across the network.
# The packet-handler returns and the end of the processing is announced to the client with a PACKET_PROCESSING_FINISHED packet.
# On the client the PACKET_UNIT_REMOVE packet is de-serialized into a packet_unit_remove structure.
# The corresponding client handler function is now called handle_remove_unit(), and finally the unit is removed from the game at client side.
Packets are now auto-generated by a script written in python (). It reads the packet definitions from and build the files common/packets_gen.[ch], server/hand_gen.[ch] and client/packhand_gen.[ch]. It prevents to make nasty mistakes in the code for serialize and de-serialize the data. It also provides a bunch of packet flags to control what you want. 
Base function for serializing and de-serializing can be found at and .
The data is simplified and compressed when it is sent. See Delta for further info about it.
The PACKET_PROCESSING_STARTED and PACKET_PROCESSING_FINISHED packets from above serve two main purposes:
* They allow the client to identify what causes a certain packet the client receives. If the packet is framed by PACKET_PROCESSING_STARTED and PACKET_PROCESSING_FINISHED packets it is the causes of the request. If not, the received packet was not caused by this client (server operator, other clients, server at a new turn).
* After a PACKET_PROCESSING_FINISHED packet the client can test if the requested action was performed by the server. If the server has sent some updates, the client data structure will now hold other values.
==Network Improvements==
In previous versions when a connection send buffer in the server got full, we emptied the buffer contents and continued processing. Unfortunately this caused incomplete packets to be sent to the client, which caused crashes in either the client or the server, since the client cannot detect this situation. This has been fixed by closing the client connection when the buffer is emptied.
We also had (and still have) several problems related to flow control. Basically the problem is the server can send packets much faster than the client can process them. This is especially true when in the end of the turn the AIs move all their units. Unit moves in particular take a long time for the client to process since by default smooth unit moves is on.
There are 3 ways to solve this problem:
# We wait for the send buffers to drain before continuing processing.
# We cut the player's connection and empty the send buffer.
# We lose packets (this is similar to 2) but can cause an incoherent state in the client).
We mitigated the problem by increasing the send buffer size on the server and making it dynamic. We also added in strategic places in the code calls to a new flush_packets() function that makes the server stall for some time draining the send buffers. Strategic places include whenever we send the whole map. The maximum amount of time spent per flush_packets() call is specified by the 'netwait' variable.
To disconnect unreachable clients we added two other features: the server terminates a client connection if it doesn't accept writes for a period of time (set using the 'tcptimeout' variable). It also pings the client after a certain time elapses (set using the 'pingtimeout' variable). If the client doesn't reply its connection is closed.
==Graphics==
Currently the graphics is stored in the PNG file format (other formats may be readable by some clients).
If you alter the graphics, then make sure that the background remains transparent. Failing to do this means the mask-pixmaps will not be generated properly, which will certainly not give any good results.
Each terrain tile is drawn in 16 versions: all the combinations with a green border in one of the main directions. Hills, mountains, forests and rivers are treated in special cases.
The Xaw client requires that the graphics be stored in "paletted" PNGs, which for graphics with few colors is probably a good idea anyway. It also has a limited number of colors available, although it will try to match similar-looking colors after the existing supply has been exhausted. Of course, not every tileset has to be usable by the Xaw client.
Isometric tilesets are drawn in a similar way to how civ2 draws (that's why civ2 graphics are compatible). For each base terrain type there exists one tile sprite for that terrain. The tile is blended with nearby tiles to get a nice-looking boundary. This is erronously called "dither" in the code.
Non-isometric tilesets draw the tiles in the "original" freeciv way, which is both harder and less pretty. There are multiple copies of each tile, so that a different copy can be drawn depending the terrain type of the adjacent tiles. It may eventually be worthwhile to convert this to the civ2 system.
==Diplomacy==
A few words about the diplomacy system. When a diplomacy meeting is established, a Treaty structure is created on both of the clients and on the server. All these structures are updated concurrently as clauses are added and removed.
==Map structure==
The map is maintained in a pretty straightforward C array, containing X*Y tiles. You can use the function
struct tile *map_get_tile(x, y) to find a pointer to a specific tile. A tile has various fields; see the struct in common/map.h
When operating on tiles you normally iterate over x and y and maybe use map_get_tile() to get the tile struct. When fx iterating in a square around a map position (x,y) the naive method
 for (x1 = x-1; x1 <= x+1; x1++)
 for (y1 = y-1; y1 <= y+1; y1++)
 /* do something */
would sometimes, fx if (x,y) = (0,0) , give tiles like (-1,0) or (0,-1) Because the map wraps in the x direction the first position should be [assuming the map has the size (map.xsize,map.ysize)] (map.xsize-1, 0), while the second tile (0,-1) is not a real time at all! This could be solved by the following:
 for (x1 = x-1; x1 <= x+1; x1++) {
 for (y1 = y-1; y1 <= y+1; y1++) {
 int abs_x = x1, abs_y = y1;
 if (!normalize_map_pos(&abs_x, &abs_y))
 continue;
 /* do something with abs_x, abs_y */
 }
 }
normalize_map_pos() will adjust the values of abs_x, abs_y to fix within the map, and if the original pos does not correspond to a tile, as (0, -1), it will return 0. Alternatively this could have all been done via the macro call
 square_iterate(x, y, 1/*radius*/, x1, y1) {
 /* do something */
 } square_iterate_end;
which automatically adjust the tile values. The defined macros should be used whenever possible, the example of a "manual" square iterate was only included to give people the knowledge of how things work.
Also available is the function real_map_distance(), which takes wrap and such things into account. It does not however take terrain and roads, etc. into account. For that you would use a move_cost_map, which is generated via the function generate_warmap(), and calculates the distances from a tile to all other tiles on the map. See server/gotohand.c.
Note that if all the code that operate on x and y values used macros, it would be very simple to convert these, to allow fx a flat world or a map structure like in civ2 for isometric view.
Almost all functions expect that any passed map positions are normal (is_normal_map_pos returns true). Currently there is no known exception of this rule. To assert this the CHECK_MAP_POS macro should be used.
==Different types of map topology==
Originally Freeciv supports only a simple rectangular map. For instance a 5x3 map would be conceptualized as
 <- XXXXX ->
 <- XXXXX ->
 <- XXXXX ->
and it looks just like that under "overhead" (non-isometric) view (the arrows represent an east-west wrapping). But under an isometric-view client, the same map will look like
 X
 X X
 X X X
 X X X
 X X X
 X X
 x
where "north" is to the upper-right and "south" to the lower-left. This makes for a mediocre interface.
An isometric-view client will behave better with an isometric map. This is what Civ2, SMAC, Civ3, etc. all use. A rectangular isometric map can be conceptualized as
 <- X X X X X ->
 <- X X X X X ->
 <- X X X X X ->
 <- X X X X X ->
(north is up) and it will look just like that under an isometric-view client. Of course under an overhead-view client it will again turn out badly.
Both types of maps can easily wrap in either direction: north-south or east-west. Thus there are four types of wrapping: flat-earth, vertical cylinder, horizontal cylinder, and torus. Traditionally Freeciv only wraps in the east-west direction.
==Different coordinate systems==
In Freeciv, we have the general concept of a "position" or "tile". A tile can be referred to in any of several coordinate systems. The distinction becomes important when we start to use non-standard maps (see above).
Here is a table of coordinate conversions for a classical map.
Coordinate Conversions for a Classical Map
map	natural	native	index
 ABCD
 EFGH
 IJKL	
 ABCD
 EFGH
 IJKL	
 ABCD
 EFGH
 IJKL	
 ABCDEFGHIJKL
Here is a table of coordinate conversions for an iso-map.
Coordinate Conversion for an Isometric Map
map	natural	native	index
 CF
 BEIL
 ADHK
 GJ	
 A B C
 D E F
 G H I
 J K L	
 ABC
 DEF
 GHI
 JKL	
 ABCDEFGHIJKL
Below each of the coordinate systems are explained in more detail.
* Map (or "standard") coordinates.
: All of the code examples above are in map coordinates. These preserve the local geometry of square tiles, but do not represent the global map geometry well. In map coordinates, you are guaranteed (so long as we use square tiles) that the tile adjacency rules
 (map_x-1, map_y-1)
 (map_x-1, map_y)
 (map_x-1, map_y+1)	
 (map_x, map_y-1)
 (map_x, map_y)
 (map_x, map_y+1)	
 (map_x+1, map_y-1)
 (map_x+1, map_y)
 (map_x+1, map_y+1)
: are preserved, regardless of what the underlying map or drawing code looks like. This is the definition of the system.
: Map coordinates are easiest for local operations (like square_iterate or adjc_iterate) but unwieldy for global operations.
* Natural coordinates.
: Natural coordinates preserve the geometry of map coordinates, but also have the rectangular property of native coordinates. They are unwieldy for most operations because of their sparseness - they may not have the same scale as map coordinates and, in the iso case, there are gaps in the natural representation of a map.
* Native coordinates.
: With an iso-rectangular map, global operations are difficult using map coordinates. Imagine a simple iso-rectangular map. Its "natural" representation is
 A B C
 D E F
 G H I	
 (0,0) (2,0) (4,0)
 (1,1) (3,1) (5,1)
 (0,2) (2,2) (4,2)
: while its representation in map coordinates would be
 CF
 BEI
 ADH
 G	
 (2,0) (3,0)
 (1,1) (2,1) (3,1)
 (0,2) (1,2) (2,2)
 (1,3)
: Neither is particularly good for a global map operation such as whole_map_iterate. Something better is needed.
: Native coordinates compress the map into a continuous rectangle; the dimensions are defined as map.xsize × map.ysize. For instance the above iso-rectangular map is represented in native coordinates by compressing the natural representation in the X axis to get the 3 × 3 iso-rectangle of
 ABC
 DEF
 GHI	
 (0,0) (1,0) (2,0)
 (0,1) (1,1) (2,1)
 (0,2) (1,2) (2,2)
: The resulting coordinate system is much easier to use than map coordinates for some operations. These include most internal topology operations (e.g., normalize_map_pos, whole_map_iterate) as well as storage (in map.tiles and savegames, for instance).
: In general, native coordinates can be defined based on this property: the basic map becomes a continuous (gap-free) cardinally-oriented rectangle when expressed in native coordinates.
* Index coordinates.
: Index coordinates simply reorder the map into a continous (filled-in) one-dimensional system. This coordinate system is closely tied to the ordering of the tiles in native coordinates, and is slightly easier to use for some operations (like storage) because it is one-dimensional. In general you can't assume anything about the ordering of the positions within the system.
With a classical rectangular map, the first three coordinate systems are equivalent. When we introduce isometric maps, the distinction becomes important, as demonstrated above. Many places in the code have introduced "map_x/map_y" or "nat_x/nat_y" to help distinguish whether map or native coordinates are being used. Other places are not yet rigorous in keeping them apart, and will often just name their variables "x" and "y". The latter can usually be assumed to be map coordinates.
Note that map.xsize and map.ysize define the dimension of the map in native coordinates.
Of course, if a future topology does not fit these rules for coordinate systems, they will have to be refined.
==Native coordinates on an isometric map==
An isometric map is defined by the operation that converts between map (user) coordinates and native (internal) ones. In native coordinates, an isometric map behaves exactly the same way as a standard one.
Converting from map to native coordinates involves a pi/2 rotation (which scales in each dimension by sqrt(2)) followed by a compression in the X direction by a factor of 2. Then a translation is required since the "normal set" of native coordinates is defined as
 {(x, y) | x: [0..map.xsize) and y: [0..map.ysize)}
while the normal set of map coordinates must satisfy x >= 0 and y >= 0.
Converting from native to map coordinates (a less cumbersome operation) is the opposite.
native	natural	map
 ABCDE
 FGHIJ
 KLMNO	
 A B C D E
 F G H I J
 K L M N O	
 EJ
 DIO
 CHN
 BGM
 AFL
 K
Note that
 native_to_map_pos(0, 0) == (0, map.xsize-1)
 native_to_map_pos(map.xsize-1, 0) == (map.xsize-1, 0)
 native_to_map_pos(x, y+2) = native_to_map_pos(x,y) + (1,1)
 native_to_map_pos(x+1, y) = native_to_map_pos(x,y) + (1,-1)
The math then works out to
 map_x = ceiling(nat_y / 2) + nat_x
 map_y = floor(nat_y / 2) - nat_x + map.xsize - 1
 
 nat_y = map_x + map_y - map.xsize
 nat_x = floor(map_x - map_y + map.xsize / 2)
which leads to the macros native_to_map_pos, map_to_native_pos, map_pos_to_native_x, and map_pos_to_native_y that are defined in map.h.
==Unknown tiles and Fog of War==
In the tile struct there is a field
 struct tile {
 ...
 unsigned int known;
 ...
 };
On the server the known fields is considered to be a bitvector, one bit for each player, 0==tile unknown, 1==tile known. On the client this field contains one of the following 3 values:
 enum known_type {
 TILE_UNKNOWN, TILE_KNOWN_FOGGED, TILE_KNOWN
 };
The values TILE_UNKNOWN, TILE_KNOWN are straightforward. TILE_FOGGED is a tile of which the user knows the terrain (inclusive cities, roads, etc...).
TILE_UNKNOWN tiles are (or should be) never sent to the client. In the past UNKNOWN tiles that were adjacent to FOGGED or KNOWN ones were sent to make the drawing process easier, but this has now been removed. This means exploring new land may sometimes change the appearance of existing land (but this is not fundamentally different from what might happen when you transform land). Sending the extra info, however, not only confused the goto code but allowed cheating.
Fog of war is the fact that even when you have seen a tile once you are not sent updates unless it is inside the sight range of one of your units or cities. We keep track of fog of war by counting the number of units and cities [and nifty future things like radar outposts] of each client that can see the tile. This requires a number per player, per tile, so each tile has a short[]. Every time a unit/city/miscellaneous can observe a tile 1 is added to its player's number at the tile, and when it can't observe any more (killed/moved/pillaged) 1 is subtracted. In addition to the initialization/loading of a game this array is manipulated with the void unfog_area(struct player *pplayer, int x, int y, int len) and void fog_area(struct player *pplayer, int x, int y, int len) functions. "int len" is the radius of the area that should be fogged/unfogged, i.e. a len of 1 is a normal unit. In addition to keeping track of fog of war, these functions also make sure to reveal TILE_UNKNOWN tiles you get near, and send info about TILE_UNKNOWN tiles near that the client needs for drawing. They then send the tiles to void send_tile_info(struct player *dest, int x, int y) which then sets the correct known_type and sends the tile to the client.
If you want to just show the terrain and cities of the square the function show_area does this. The tiles remain fogged. If you play without fog of war all the values of the seen arrays are initialized to 1. So you are using the exact same code, you just never get down to 0. As changes in the "fogginess" of the tiles are only sent to the client when the value shifts between zero and non-zero, no redundant packages are sent. You can even switch fog of war on/off in game just by adding/subtracting 1 to all the tiles.
We only send city and terrain updates to the players who can see the tile. So a city (or improvement) can exist in a square that is known and fogged and not be shown on the map. Likewise, you can see a city in a fogged square even if the city doesn't exist (it will be removed when you see the tile again). This is done by 1) only sending info to players who can see a tile 2) keeping track of what info has been sent so the game can be saved. For the purpose of 2) each player has a map on the server (consisting of player_tile's and dumb_city's) where the relevant information is kept.
The case where a player p1 gives map info to another player p2: This requires some extra info. Imagine a tile that neither player sees, but which p1 have the most recent info on. In that case the age of the players' info should be compared which is why the player tile has a last_updated field. This field is not kept up to date as long as the player can see the tile and it is unfogged, but when the tile gets fogged the date is updated.
:An alternative solution would be to give each tile a list of the units and cities that observe it. IMO this would not be any easier than just counting, and would have no benefits. The current solution also gives the possibility to reveal squares as you like, say near a radar tower tile special. Very flexible.
:The barbarians and the ai take their map info directly from the server, so they can currently ignore fog of war, and they do so. I really think that the ideal AI wouldn't be cheating like this.
There is now a shared vision feature, meaning that if p1 gives shared vision to p2, every time a function like show_area, fog_area, unfog_area or give_tile_info_from_player_to_player is called on p1, p2 also gets the info. Note that if p2 gives shared info to p3, p3 also gets the info. This is controlled by p1's really_gives_vision bitvector, where the dependencies will be kept.
If there is anything I have explained inadequately in this section you can ask me on <thue_AT_diku.dk>.
-Thue
==National borders==
For the display of national borders (similar to those used in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) each map tile also has an "owner" field, to identify which nation lays claim to it. If game.borders is non-zero, each city claims a circle of tiles game.borders in radius (in the case of neighbouring enemy cities, tiles are divided equally, with the older city winning any tiles). Cities claim all immediately adjacent tiles, plus any other tiles within the border radius on the same continent. Land cities also claim ocean tiles if they are surrounded by 5 land tiles on the same continent (this is a crude detection of inland seas or lakes, which should be improved upon).
Tile ownership is decided only by the server, and sent to the clients, which draw border lines between tiles of differing ownership. Owner information is sent for all tiles that are known by a client, whether or not they are fogged. A patch to convert this to "semi-fogged" behaviour, whereby clients receive limited information about non-neighbouring and unseen enemies, is available at http://freecivac.sf.net/.
==Client GUI- Athena==
One client GUI is written using athena-widgets. A few comments on this could prove useful for anyone wishing to write new dialogs or improve on the current ones.
===Widgets===
If you create new widgets for a dialog, like:
 players_form = XtVaCreateManagedWidget("playersform", formWidgetClass, players_dialog_shell, NULL);
then put the widget properties in the app-default file 'Freeciv', instead of hardcoding them. For the widget created above, the following entries in the app-default file applies:
 *playersform.background: lightblue
 *playersform.resizable: true
 *playersform.top: chainTop
 *playersform.bottom: chainBottom
 *playersform.left: chainLeft
 *playersform.right: chainRight
===Pixcomm and Canvas===
The Pixcomm is a subclassed Command-widget, which can display a Pixmap instead of a string, on top of a button (command). The Pixcomm widget should be used at all places where this kind of high-level functionality is required.
The Canvas widget is more low-level. One have to write an expose (redraw) event-handler for each widget. The widget generates events on resize and mousebuttons.
:Reading any Xt documentation, will tell you how powerful widget subclassing is. So I went through great troubles subclassing the command widget. It was not before long I got mails from unhappy Xaw3d (and derives) users, that the client keeps crashing on them. Turns out that subclassing from any widgets but Core, chains the new widgets to libXaw. In hindsight I should just subclassed the Canvas widget and add more highlevel functionality. -PU
==Misc - The idea trashcan==
:Currently all of the major entities - units, cities, players contain a unique id. This id is really only required when a reference to an entity is to be serialized (saved or distributed over the net). However in the current code, the id is also used for comparing, looking up and in general referencing entities. This results in a lot of mess and unnecessary duplicate functions. Often when programming, one wonders if some function needs the id or a pointer when referring to an entity. -PU
The paragraph above isn't true anymore for players, units and cities. -RF
----
Player-related entities in Freeciv - by Reinier Post <reinpost@win.tue.nl>
+ by dwp@mso.anu.edu.au
Freeciv is confused about the meaning of 'player'. As a participant in Freeciv games, you'll notice that the participants are called 'players'. At the same time, players seem to be identified with civilizations. On the other hand, civilizations seem to be identified by 'nation': every player chooses a nation at the start of the game.
In the data structures, a 'player' identifies a civilization, not a user.
----
THE PLAN:
There are four player-related entities:
* player
: A civilization, with a capital, cities, units, an income, etc.
* nation
: A type of civilization (except that very little actually depends on nation, and the oddity exists that each player must be of different nation)
* user
: Identifies 'someone out there', usually a human user running a civclient (this is the plan; it is not yet implemented).
* connection
: Records a client connection; like a user, but disappears when the user disconnects, whereas for real users we may want to remember them between connections. See Connections section below.
Where do these entities exist?
Nations aren't actually used for anything that matters; for them, so the question isn't very interesting.
Players (more aptly named, 'civilizations'), exist in games. Except in the context of a running game, the entity makes no sense. Players and their status are part of savefiles. A game can be saved and restarted on a different server; the players will be the same. A new game will have new players. Players exist in common/ (even games do) but a client only has one instantiated player.
The reason to introduce users is client-side server commands. It must be possible to assign different levels of access to commands to different users. Attaching it to players is not good enough: the information must survive the addition and removal of other players, the start or restart of a game, reconnections by the same user even from different computers, or transferral of the game to a different server. However, a user may have different levels of access in different games.
While they last, connections are sufficient identification for users. The user entity will allow users to be identified when they reconnect.
Ideally, users would be identified with unique global ids, handed out by a 'registry service' similar to the metaserver, but this would be too cumbersome in practice. So the plan is to make users persist in a server session (even when a game is started or restarted when that option is added) and make them persist across games (when a saved game is loaded in a different server session).
Users will be created when they first connect to a server, remembered by the running server and in savefiles. Upon connecting, the client will be sent a unique session id, generated when the server started, plus a fresh user id; it will store them in a ~/.civcookie file, and send it back when trying to reconnect. This will allow the identity of users to be protected. 'Protected' players will only allow the same user to reconnect; 'unprotected' ones allow anyone to connect; server commands and probably client options will be available to control this.
Player names will be assigned to users, not players.
The server maintains a default access level, which is used for new users and unprotected ones.
----
THE PRESENT IMPLEMENTATION:
Currently access levels are stored in the connection struct. This allows access levels to be assigned to each individual connected player, which would not be the case if they were directly assigned to the player struct (due to the fact that the players array changes when players are added or removed).
But that's it.
Players are still created before the game is started, and player names still belong to players. Access levels exist in client and server, but only the server uses them. User ids are not yet implemented; Server ids do not exist at all.
Commands to protect/unprotect users do not yet exist; they would serve no useful purpose.
Access levels can be set for individual users, including AI players with a connected observer, but only while someone is connected; they will not be remembered when the user disconnects.
==Connections==
The connection class represent a user. Every user is associated with a connection structure.
The connections can be listed into a specific list of type struct conn_list, defined thanks to . For convenience the following commonly applicable lists are maintained:
: game.all_connections - all connections.
: game.est_connections - established connections.
: struct player::connections - connections for specific player.
: struct connection::self - single connection (a list with one only item which is the connection itself).
When connecting to server side, a connection structure is generated and set in the game.all_connection connection list, waiting for the end of establishing process (which can be different whether the server has an authentication support or not). At client side, game.all_connections is supposed to be the same list as game.est_connections because the server doesn't send info about the connections which didn't have completed the connection. After that, the connection is marked as established and pushed back in the game.est_connections list (without removing of game.all_connections of course).
There are 4 states possible for an established connection:
# The connection can be a player controller. It is the main state, especially if you play Freeciv at local host. You are controlling a player, issuing commands, etc. This state is symbolized by pconn->playing != NULL and pconn->observer == FALSE. There is a unique controller per player (some tries have been done in former versions to have multiple controllers, without success).
# The connection can be a global observer. In this case, the connection is omniscient. It can see the whole map, any city, any unit etc. However, a "global observer" cannot issues game commands. This state is obtained when pconn->playing == NULL and pconn->observer == TRUE.
# The connection can be a player observer. As for the global observer, the connection is only a spectator. But, the knowledge of the map, the cities and the units is limited to one player (including unexplored map, fog etc.). Internally, the connection has pconn->playing != NULL and pconn->observer == TRUE.
# The connection can be in detached state. It means it just connects in the server lobby, but it is not a player controller, neither an observer of the game. This state is obtained when pconn->playing == NULL and pconn->observer == FALSE.
==Starting a Server from Within a Client==
After many years of complaints regarding the ease (or lack thereof) of starting a game of Freeciv [start a server, input settings on a command line, start a client, add connect, etc], a method has been developed for starting and playing a complete game using only the client. This has been called the "extended" or "new connect dialog". This is perhaps a misnomer, but there it is. This win32 client has had this feature in some form for some time.
It works by forking a server from within the client and then controlling that server via chatline messages. The guts of the machinery to do this can be found in these files:
 client/connectdlg_common.[ch]
 client/gui-*/connectdlg.[ch]
 common/packets.def
 server/gamehand.[ch]
 server/stdinhand.[ch]
When a player starts a client, he is presented with several options: start a new game, continue a saved game and connect to a networked game. For the latter option, connect_to_server() is called and login proceeds as normal. The the first two options, connectdlg_common.c:client_start_server() is called. Here, a server is spawned, standard input and outputs to that process are closed, and then connect_to_server() is called so the client connects to that server.
At this point everything regarding the client/server connection is as usual; however, for the client to control the server, it must have access level HACK, so it must verify to the server that it is local (on the same machine or at least has access to the same disk as the server). The procedure is:
# the server creates a file using gamehand.c:create_challenge_filename() and puts the name of this file in packet_server_join_reply that it sends back to the client. The name of the file is semi-random.
# The client, upon receiving confirmation that it can join the server, creates a file using the name the server selected and places a random number inside that file.
# The client sends a packet [packet_single_want_hack_req] with that random number back to the server.
# The server upon receiving the packet [packet_single_want_hack_req], opens the file and compares the two numbers. If the file exists and the numbers are equal the server grants that client HACK access level and sends a packet [packet_single_want_hack_reply] informing the client of its elevated access level.
Only one other packet is used — packet_single_playerlist_req — which asks the server to send a player list when a savegame is loaded. This list is used for player selection.
==Macros and inline functions==
For a long time Freeciv had no inline functions, only macros. With the use of other C99 features and some new requirements by the code, this has changed. Now both macros and inline functions are used.
This causes problems because one coder may prefer to use a macro while another prefers an inline function. Of course there was always some discretion to the author about whether to use a function or a macro; all we've done is add even more choices.
Therefore the following guidelines should be followed:
* Functions should only be put into header files when doing so makes a measurable impact on speed. Functions should not be turned into macros or inlined unless there is a reason to do so.
* Macros that take function-like parameters should evaluate each parameter exactly once. Any macro that doesn't follow this convention should be named in all upper-case letters as a MACRO.
* Iterator macros should respect "break".
* In header files macros are preferred to inline functions, but inline functions are better than MACROS.
* Functions or macros that are currently in one form do not have to be changed to the other form.
Note that many existing macros do not follow these guidelines.
==Style Guide==
See Coding Style.
* If you send patches, use "diff -u" (or "diff -r -u"). For further information, see How to Contribute. Also, name patch files descriptively (e.g. "fix-foo-bug-0.diff" is good, but "freeciv.diff" is not).
* When doing a "diff" for a patch, be sure to exclude unnecessary files by using the "-X" argument to "diff". E.g.:
 % diff -ruN -Xdiff_ignore freeciv_svn freeciv >/tmp/fix-foo-bug-0.diff
: A suggested "diff_ignore" file is included in the Freeciv distribution.
==Internationalization (I18N)==
Messages and text in general which are shown in the GUI should be translated by using the _() macro. In addition log_normal(format, ...) messages should be translated. The other log levels (log_fatal(), log_error(), log_verbose(), and log_debug()) should not be translated.
Category:Coding