From a8c340c8924f62c0dd2e4b712bee084ba4257adf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eric Biggers Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 13:30:47 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] wimlib.h: Remove redundant documentation; improve documentation --- README | 10 +-- src/wimlib.h | 209 ++++++++++++++------------------------------------- 2 files changed, 62 insertions(+), 157 deletions(-) diff --git a/README b/README index a2dc56c3..a31ca1ee 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,10 +1,10 @@ INTRODUCTION -This is wimlib version 1.4.0 (May 2013). wimlib is a C library that can be -used to create, modify, extract, and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format -(WIM files). These files are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility -on Windows, but wimlib is distributed with a free implementation of ImageX -called "wimlib-imagex" for both UNIX and Windows. +This is wimlib version 1.4.0 (May 2013). wimlib is a C library for creating, +modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM +files). These files are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on +Windows, but wimlib is distributed with a free implementation of ImageX called +"wimlib-imagex" for both UNIX and Windows. INSTALLATION diff --git a/src/wimlib.h b/src/wimlib.h index 7cfd4935..a2c3076e 100644 --- a/src/wimlib.h +++ b/src/wimlib.h @@ -31,107 +31,30 @@ * * \section intro Introduction * - * This is the documentation for the library interface of wimlib 1.4.0. If you - * have installed wimlib and want to know how to use the @b wimlib-imagex - * program, please see the man pages instead. Also: the actual project page - * where you can download the source code for the library is at https://sourceforge.net/projects/wimlib. - * - * wimlib is a C library to read, write, and mount archive files in the Windows - * Imaging Format (WIM files). These files are normally created using the - * ImageX (@a imagex.exe) utility on Windows, but this library provides a free - * implementation of ImageX for UNIX-based systems (and, since v1.3.0, for - * Windows systems) and an API to allow other programs to read, write, and mount - * WIM files. wimlib is comparable to Microsoft's WIMGAPI, but was designed - * independently and is not a clone of it. - * - * \section format WIM files - * - * A Windows Imaging (WIM) file is an archive. Like some other archive - * formats such as ZIP, files in WIM archives may be compressed. WIM archives - * support two Microsoft-specific compression formats: @b LZX and @b XPRESS. - * Both are based on LZ77 and Huffman encoding, and both are supported by - * wimlib. - * - * Unlike ZIP files, WIM files can contain multiple independent toplevel - * directory trees known as @a images. While each image has its own metadata, - * files are not duplicated for each image; instead, each file is included only - * once in the entire WIM. Microsoft did this so that in one WIM file, they - * could do things like have 5 different versions of Windows that are almost - * exactly the same. - * - * Microsoft provides documentation for the WIM file format, XPRESS compression - * format, and LZX compression format. The XPRESS documentation is acceptable, - * but the LZX documentation is not entirely correct, and the WIM documentation - * itself is incomplete. - * - * A WIM file may be either stand-alone or split into multiple parts. - * - * \section ntfs NTFS support - * - * As of version 1.0.0, wimlib supports capturing and applying images directly - * to NTFS volumes. This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the - * NTFS-3g project. This feature supports capturing and restoring NTFS-specific - * data such as security descriptors, alternate data streams, and reparse point - * data. - - * The code for NTFS image capture and image application is complete enough that - * it is possible to apply an image from the "install.wim" contained in recent - * Windows installation media (Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8) directly to a - * NTFS volume, and then boot Windows from it after preparing the Boot - * Configuration Data. In addition, a Windows installation can be captured (or - * backed up) into a WIM file, and then re-applied later. - * - * wimlib v1.3.0 and later also supports NTFS capture and apply in the native - * Windows build, which works slightly differently and relies on native Win32 - * API calls rather than libntfs-3g. - * - * \section winpe Windows PE - * - * A major use for this library is to create customized images of Windows PE, the - * Windows Preinstallation Environment, without having to rely on Windows. Windows - * PE is a lightweight version of Windows that can run entirely from memory and can - * be used to install Windows from local media or a network drive or perform - * maintenance. Windows PE is the operating system that runs when you boot from - * the Windows installation media. - * - * You can find Windows PE on the installation DVD for Windows Vista, Windows 7, - * or Windows 8, in the file @c sources/boot.wim. Windows PE can also be found - * in the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), which is free to download - * from Microsoft, inside the @c WinPE.cab file, which you can extract if you - * install either the @c cabextract or @c p7zip programs. - * - * In addition, Windows installations and recovery partitions frequently contain a - * WIM containing an image of the Windows Recovery Environment, which is similar to - * Windows PE. + * This is the documentation for the library interface of wimlib 1.4.0, a C + * library for creating, modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the + * Windows Imaging Format. This documentation is intended for developers only. + * If you have installed wimlib and want to know how to use the @b wimlib-imagex + * program, please see the README file. * * \section starting Getting Started * - * wimlib uses the GNU autotools, so it should be easy to install with - * configure && make && sudo make install; however, please see the - * README for more information about installing it. To use wimlib in a program - * after installing it, include @c wimlib.h and link your program with @c -lwim. + * wimlib uses the GNU autotools, so, on UNIX systems, it should be easy to + * install with configure && make && sudo make install; however, + * please see the README for more information about installing it. To use + * wimlib in a program after installing it, include @c wimlib.h and link your + * program with @c -lwim. * * wimlib wraps up a WIM file in an opaque ::WIMStruct structure. A ::WIMStruct * may represent either a stand-alone WIM or one part of a split WIM. * * All functions in wimlib's public API are prefixed with @c wimlib. Most - * return an integer error code on failure. Use wimlib_get_error_string() to - * get a string that describes an error code. wimlib also can print error - * messages itself when an error happens, and these may be more informative than - * the error code; to enable this, call wimlib_set_print_errors(). Please note - * that this is for convenience only, and some errors can occur without a - * message being printed. - * - * wimlib is thread-safe as long as different ::WIMStruct's are used, except for - * the following exceptions: - * - wimlib_set_print_errors() and wimlib_set_memory_allocator() both apply globally. - * - You also must call wimlib_global_init() in the main thread to avoid any - * race conditions with one-time allocations of memory. - * - wimlib_mount_image(), while it can be used to mount multiple WIMs - * concurrently in the same process, will daemonize the entire process when it - * does so for the first time. This includes changing the working directory - * to the root directory. + * return 0 on success and a positive error code on failure. Use + * wimlib_get_error_string() to get a string that describes an error code. + * wimlib also can print error messages itself when an error happens, and these + * may be more informative than the error code; to enable this, call + * wimlib_set_print_errors(). Please note that this is for convenience only, + * and some errors can occur without a message being printed. * * To open an existing WIM, use wimlib_open_wim(). * @@ -140,18 +63,22 @@ * * To add an image to a WIM file from a directory tree on your filesystem, call * wimlib_add_image(). This can be done with a ::WIMStruct gotten from - * wimlib_open_wim() or from wimlib_create_new_wim(). wimlib_add_image() can - * also capture a WIM image directly from a NTFS volume if you provide the - * ::WIMLIB_ADD_FLAG_NTFS flag, provided that wimlib was not compiled with - * the --without-ntfs-3g flag. - * - * To extract an image from a WIM file, call wimlib_extract_image(). You may - * extract an image either to a directory or directly to a NTFS volume, the - * latter of which will preserve NTFS-specific data such as security - * descriptors. - * - * wimlib supports mounting WIM files either read-only or read-write. Mounting - * is done using wimlib_mount_image() and unmounting is done using + * wimlib_open_wim() or from wimlib_create_new_wim(). On UNIX, + * wimlib_add_image() can also capture a WIM image directly from a block device + * containing a NTFS filesystem. + * + * To extract an image from a WIM file, call wimlib_extract_image(). This can + * be done either to a directory, or, on UNIX, directly to a block device + * containing a NTFS filesystem. + * + * To extract individual files or directories from a WIM image, rather than a + * full image, call wimlib_extract_files(). + * + * To programatically make changes to a WIM image without mounting it, call + * wimlib_update_image(). + * + * On UNIX, wimlib supports mounting WIM files either read-only or read-write. + * Mounting is done using wimlib_mount_image() and unmounting is done using * wimlib_unmount_image(). Mounting can be done without root privileges because * it is implemented using FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace). If wimlib is * compiled with the --without-fuse flag, these functions will be @@ -175,18 +102,16 @@ * the WIM operation(s) to report on the progress of the operation (for example, * how many bytes have been written so far). * - * \section imagex wimlib-imagex - * - * wimlib comes with a command-line interface, the @b wimlib-imagex program. It - * is documented with man pages. This program was originally just called @b - * imagex, but has been changed to @b wimlib-imagex to avoid confusion with - * Microsoft's @a imagex.exe (which would otherwise have exactly the same - * filename on Windows). - * - * \section mkwinpeimg mkwinpeimg - * - * wimlib also comes with the mkwinpeimg script, which is documented in a - * man page. + * wimlib is thread-safe as long as different ::WIMStruct's are used, except for + * the following exceptions: + * - You must call wimlib_global_init() in one thread before calling any other + * functions. + * - wimlib_set_print_errors() and wimlib_set_memory_allocator() both apply globally. + * race conditions with one-time allocations of memory. + * - wimlib_mount_image(), while it can be used to mount multiple WIMs + * concurrently in the same process, will daemonize the entire process when it + * does so for the first time. This includes changing the working directory + * to the root directory. * * \section encodings Locales and character encodings * @@ -197,45 +122,25 @@ * and the encoding is UTF-16LE. * * On UNIX, each ::wimlib_tchar is 1 byte and is simply a "char", and the -* encoding is the locale-dependent multibyte encoding. I recommend you set your -* locale to a UTF-8 capable locale to avoid any issues. Also, by default, - * wimlib on UNIX will assume the locale is UTF-8 capable unless you call -* wimlib_global_init() after having set your desired locale. + * encoding is the locale-dependent multibyte encoding. I recommend you set + * your locale to a UTF-8 capable locale to avoid any issues. Also, by default, + * wimlib on UNIX will assume the locale is UTF-8 capable unless you call + * wimlib_global_init() after having set your desired locale. * * \section Limitations * - * While wimlib supports the main features of WIM files, wimlib currently has - * the following limitations: - * - There is no way to add, remove, modify, or extract specific files in a WIM - * without mounting it, other than by adding, removing, or extracting an - * entire image. The FUSE mount feature should be used for this purpose. - * - Currently, Microsoft's @a image.exe can create slightly smaller WIM files - * than wimlib (~2% or 3% smaller) when using maximum (LZX) compression. - * - wimlib is experimental and likely contains bugs; use Microsoft's @a - * imagex.exe if you want to make sure your WIM files are made "correctly". + * This section documents some technical limitations of wimlib not already + * documented in the man page for @b wimlib-imagex. + * * - The old WIM format from Vista pre-releases is not supported. - * - Compressed resource chunk sizes other than 32768 are not supported, - * although this doesn't seem to be a problem because the chunk size always - * seems to be this value. - * - wimlib does not provide a clone of the @b PEImg tool that allows you to - * make certain Windows-specific modifications to a Windows PE image, such as - * adding a driver or Windows component. Such a tool could conceivably be - * implemented on top of wimlib, although it likely would be hard to implement - * because it would have to do very Windows-specific things such as - * manipulating the driver store. wimlib does provide the @b mkwinpeimg - * script for a similar purpose, however. With regards to adding drivers to - * Windows PE, you have the option of putting them anywhere in the Windows PE - * image, then loading them after boot using @b drvload.exe. - * - Although wimlib 1.3.0 and later can be used on Windows as well as UNIX, the - * Windows build has some limitations compared to the UNIX build. - * (The differences are documented better in the man pages for - * @b wimlib-imagex than here.) - * - * \section legal License - * - * The wimlib library, as well as the programs and scripts distributed with it - * (@b wimlib-imagex and @b mkwinpeimg), is licensed under the GNU General - * Public License version 3 or later. + * - Compressed resource chunk sizes other than 32768 are not supported. This + * doesn't seem to be a real problem because the chunk size always seems to be + * this value. + * - wimlib does not provide a clone of the @b PEImg tool, or the @b Dism + * functionality other than that already present in @b ImageX, that allows you + * to make certain Windows-specific modifications to a Windows PE image, such + * as adding a driver or Windows component. Such a tool possibly could be + * implemented on top of wimlib. */ #ifndef _WIMLIB_H -- 2.43.0