doc/read_write_bg.dox
author deba
Fri, 03 Nov 2006 14:14:05 +0000
changeset 2289 03e4d2128efe
child 2391 14a343be7a5a
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     1 namespace lemon {
     2 /*!
     3 \page read_write_bg Background of Reading and Writing
     4 
     5 To read a map (on the nodes or edges)
     6 the \ref lemon::GraphReader "GraphReader"
     7 should know how to read a Value from the given map.
     8 By the default implementation the input operator reads a value from
     9 the stream and the type of the read value is the value type of the given map.
    10 When the reader should skip a value in the stream, because you do not
    11 want to store it in a map, the reader skips a character sequence without 
    12 whitespaces. 
    13 
    14 If you want to change the functionality of the reader, you can use
    15 template parameters to specialize it. When you give a reading
    16 command for a map you can give a Reader type as template parameter.
    17 With this template parameter you can control how the Reader reads
    18 a value from the stream.
    19 
    20 The reader has the next structure: 
    21 \code
    22 struct TypeReader {
    23   typedef TypeName Value;
    24 
    25   void read(std::istream& is, Value& value);
    26 };
    27 \endcode
    28 
    29 For example, the \c "strings" nodemap contains strings and you do not need
    30 the value of the string just the length. Then you can implement an own Reader
    31 struct.
    32 
    33 \code
    34 struct LengthReader {
    35   typedef int Value;
    36 
    37   void read(std::istream& is, Value& value) {
    38     std::string tmp;
    39     is >> tmp;
    40     value = tmp.length();
    41   }
    42 };
    43 ...
    44 reader.readNodeMap<LengthReader>("strings", lengthMap);
    45 \endcode  
    46 
    47 The global functionality of the reader class can be changed by giving a
    48 special template parameter to the GraphReader class. By default, the
    49 template parameter is \c DefaultReaderTraits. A reader traits class 
    50 should provide a nested template class Reader for each type, and a 
    51 DefaultReader for skipping a value.
    52 
    53 The specialization of writing is very similar to that of reading.
    54 
    55 \section u Undirected graphs
    56 
    57 In a file describing an undirected graph (ugraph, for short) you find an
    58 \c uedgeset section instead of the \c edgeset section. The first line of
    59 the section describes the names of the maps on the undirected egdes and all
    60 next lines describe one undirected edge with the the incident nodes and the
    61 values of the map.
    62 
    63 The format handles directed edge maps as a syntactical sugar???, if there
    64 are two maps with names being the same with a \c '+' and a \c '-' prefix
    65 then this will be read as a directed map.
    66 
    67 \code
    68 @uedgeset
    69              label      capacity        +flow   -flow
    70 32   2       1          4.3             2.0     0.0
    71 21   21      5          2.6             0.0     2.6
    72 21   12      8          3.4             0.0     0.0
    73 \endcode
    74 
    75 The \c edges section is changed to \c uedges section. This section
    76 describes labeled edges and undirected edges. The directed edge label
    77 should start with a \c '+' or a \c '-' prefix to decide the direction
    78 of the edge. 
    79 
    80 \code
    81 @uedges
    82 uedge 1
    83 +edge 5
    84 -back 5
    85 \endcode
    86 
    87 There are similar classes to the \ref lemon::GraphReader "GraphReader" and
    88 \ref lemon::GraphWriter "GraphWriter" which
    89 handle the undirected graphs. These classes are
    90 the \ref lemon::UGraphReader "UGraphReader"
    91 and \ref lemon::UGraphWriter "UGraphWriter".
    92 
    93 The \ref lemon::UGraphReader::readUEdgeMap() "readUEdgeMap()"
    94 function reads an undirected map and the
    95 \ref lemon::UGraphReader::readUEdge() "readUEdge()"
    96 reads an undirected edge from the file, 
    97 
    98 \code
    99 reader.readUEdgeMap("capacity", capacityMap);
   100 reader.readEdgeMap("flow", flowMap);
   101 ...
   102 reader.readUEdge("u_edge", u_edge);
   103 reader.readEdge("edge", edge);
   104 \endcode
   105 
   106 \section advanced Advanced features
   107 
   108 The graph reader and writer classes give an easy way to read and write
   109 graphs. But sometimes we want more advanced features. In this case we can
   110 use the more general <tt>lemon reader and writer</tt> interface.
   111 
   112 The LEMON file format is a section oriented file format. It contains one or
   113 more sections, each starting with a line identifying its type 
   114 (the word starting with the \c \@  character).
   115 The content of the section this way cannot contain line with \c \@ first
   116 character. The file may contains comment lines with \c # first character.
   117 
   118 The \ref lemon::LemonReader "LemonReader"
   119 and \ref lemon::LemonWriter "LemonWriter"
   120 gives a framework to read and
   121 write sections. There are various section reader and section writer
   122 classes which can be attached to a \ref lemon::LemonReader "LemonReader"
   123 or a \ref lemon::LemonWriter "LemonWriter".
   124 
   125 There are default section readers and writers for reading and writing
   126 item sets, and labeled items in the graph. These read and write
   127 the format described above. Other type of data can be handled with own
   128 section reader and writer classes which are inherited from the
   129 \c LemonReader::SectionReader or the
   130 \ref lemon::LemonWriter::SectionWriter "LemonWriter::SectionWriter"
   131 classes.
   132 
   133 The next example defines a special section reader which reads the
   134 \c \@description sections into a string:
   135 
   136 \code 
   137 class DescriptionReader : LemonReader::SectionReader {
   138 protected:
   139   virtual bool header(const std::string& line) {
   140     std::istringstream ls(line);
   141     std::string head;
   142     ls >> head;
   143     return head == "@description";
   144   }
   145 
   146   virtual void read(std::istream& is) {
   147     std::string line;
   148     while (getline(is, line)) {
   149       desc += line;
   150     }
   151   }
   152 public:
   153 
   154   typedef LemonReader::SectionReader Parent;
   155   
   156   DescriptionReader(LemonReader& reader) : Parent(reader) {}
   157 
   158   const std::string& description() const {
   159     return description;
   160   }
   161 
   162 private:
   163   std::string desc;
   164 };
   165 \endcode
   166 
   167 The other advanced stuff of the generalized file format is that 
   168 multiple edgesets can be stored to the same nodeset. It can be used 
   169 for example as a network traffic matrix.
   170 
   171 In our example there is a network with symmetric links and there are assymetric
   172 traffic request on the network. This construction can be stored in an
   173 undirected graph and in a directed \c ListEdgeSet class. The example
   174 shows the input with the \ref lemon::LemonReader "LemonReader" class:
   175 
   176 \code
   177 ListUGraph network;
   178 ListUGraph::UEdgeMap<double> capacity;
   179 ListEdgeSet<ListUGraph> traffic(network);
   180 ListEdgeSet<ListUGraph>::EdgeMap<double> request(network);
   181 
   182 LemonReader reader(std::cin);
   183 NodeSetReader<ListUGraph> nodesetReader(reader, network);
   184 UEdgeSetReader<ListUGraph> 
   185   uEdgesetReader(reader, network, nodesetReader);
   186 uEdgesetReader.readEdgeMap("capacity", capacity);
   187 EdgeSetReader<ListEdgeSet<ListUGraph> > 
   188   edgesetReader(reader, traffic, nodesetReader, "traffic");
   189 edgesetReader.readEdgeMap("request", request);
   190 
   191 reader.run();
   192 \endcode
   193 
   194 Because both the \ref lemon::GraphReader "GraphReader"
   195 and the \ref lemon::UGraphReader "UGraphReader" can be converted
   196 to \ref lemon::LemonReader "LemonReader"
   197 and it can resolve the label's of the items, the previous
   198 result can be achived with the \ref lemon::UGraphReader "UGraphReader"
   199 class, too.
   200 
   201 
   202 \code
   203 ListUGraph network;
   204 ListUGraph::UEdgeSet<double> capacity;
   205 ListEdgeSet<ListUGraph> traffic(network);
   206 ListEdgeSet<ListUGraph>::EdgeMap<double> request(network);
   207 
   208 UGraphReader<ListUGraph> reader(std::cin, network);
   209 reader.readEdgeMap("capacity", capacity);
   210 EdgeSetReader<ListEdgeSet<ListUGraph> > 
   211   edgesetReader(reader, traffic, reader, "traffic");
   212 edgesetReader.readEdgeMap("request", request);
   213 
   214 reader.run();
   215 \endcode
   216 
   217 \author Balazs Dezso
   218 */
   219 }