Bgl2Xml GUI Available

[scruffyduck]

Bgl2Xml GUI is a simple windows interface to SDE allowing users to decompile Bgl files to XML. You can also view the resulting XML in the XML Editor or viewer of your choice. Download it from here:

http://www.scruffyduck.co.uk/files/bgl2xml_gui_90.zip


All feedback much appreciated.

 

[Geoff_D]

Bgl2Xml GUI is a simple windows interface to SDE allowing users to decompile Bgl files to XML. You can also view the resulting XML in the XML Editor or viewer of your choice. Download it from here:

http://www.scruffyduck.co.uk/files/bgl2xml_gui_90.zip


All feedback much appreciated.

bgl2xml does not produce Valid XML.

It seems not to convert & to & ,

BGL : "Jack & Jill" should convert to XML: "Jack & Jill"

Should be a simple fix ...

(Not tested it for correct conversion of other RESERVED XML Characters)

Geoff

 

[n4gix]

Actually Geoff...

& or & are equivalent bitwise AND operators, for example 5 3 & will evaluate to 1

&& or && or and are equivalent logical operators

XML will parse all three of the following exactly the same:

(A:Var1,unit) (A:Var2,unit) &&
(A:Var1,unit) (A:Var2,unit) &&
(A:Var1,unit) (A:Var2,unit) and

An ampersand in quote marks "&" is treated as a string literal...

 

[scruffyduck]

bgl2xml does not produce Valid XML.

It seems not to convert & to & ,

BGL : "Jack & Jill" should convert to XML: "Jack & Jill"

Should be a simple fix ...

(Not tested it for correct conversion of other RESERVED XML Characters)

Geoff

Thanks for the feedback. 0.9 is a very old version of Bgl2Xml. I checked the codebase and it would appear that the current version does make that substitution. I will check it to see if that works in practice.

 

[Geoff_D]

Actually Geoff...

& or & are equivalent bitwise AND operators, for example 5 3 & will evaluate to 1

&& or && or and are equivalent logical operators

XML will parse all three of the following exactly the same:

(A:Var1,unit) (A:Var2,unit) &&
(A:Var1,unit) (A:Var2,unit) &&
(A:Var1,unit) (A:Var2,unit) and

An ampersand in quote marks "&" is treated as a string literal...

I believe, for example
<Airport
country="United States"
state="Alaska"
city="Palmer"
name="B & B Boys Ranch" <<<<<<<<<<<<< INVALID
lat="61.5929499641061"
lon="-149.302272051573"
alt="91.44M"
magvar="-25"
trafficScalar="0.7"
airportTestRadius="5000.0M"
ident="3AK6"
>


is INVALID.

Line should be

name="B &amp; B Boys Ranch"

==============
Firefox confirms this, when one "attempts" views the XML in it's browser.
bcomp.exe also complains about the line, till it is corrected, then it Compiles.

As I said, I am a XML "noob" , but this is what i see happening in practice.

Geoff

 

[Geoff_D]

Thanks for the feedback. 0.9 is a very old version of Bgl2Xml. I checked the codebase and it would appear that the current version does make that substitution. I will check it to see if that works in practice.

Please can you point me towards the lastest version

Also, is Bgl2Xml exepected to decode all of a bgl file. ?

It seems if I use it (I admit an OLD version) to convert a bgl to xml, and then use bglcomp to turn it back into a bgl, the resulting bgl is significantly smaller than the original.

Should I be doing this a different way ??

Sorry, I am new to XML/BGL -- if this is a requently answered Question.

Geoff

 

[scruffyduck]

Please can you point me towards the lastest version

Also, is Bgl2Xml exepected to decode all of a bgl file. ?

It seems if I use it (I admit an OLD version) to convert a bgl to xml, and then use bcomp to turn it back into a bgl, the resulting bgl is significantly smaller than the original.

Should I be doing this a different way ??

Sorry, I am new to XML/BGL -- if this is a requently answered Question.

Geoff

Are you looking for the command line version or the GUI version?

Decompling to XML is an imprecise activity. The FS community has not direct access to the file format (it is proprietary to Microsoft). so our ability to decode it depends on the work of members of the community. We think we can do everything but of course cannot be sure. The only thing thatI know the current versions of Bgl2Xml do not decompile are model (mdl files) these can often be a large part of a bgl file if present. In developing our tools we spend a lot of time checking the output for match to input. My experience is (with scenery and airport files) is that what we get back after decompiling and compiling matches the original in all material respects.

I would not expect the size of a recompiled file to be the same as that of the source file. There are lots of reasons for this of course.

 

[Geoff_D]

Jon

I found a later GUI version, 1.0 ? and that works fine.
Thank you for developing that .. much apprecaited. ( labor of love ! )

Not only does it handle the "&" decoding, but also, the bgl file I am working with, once converted to XML with this later version, has not issue compling again with "bglcomp".

The bgl file I was looking at is a standard MS FSX scenery file.

Can you suggest then, what data might be missing from the de-complied/re-compiled version. Its about 75% that of the original, that seems like a lot of Data to have lost.

Geoff

 

[scruffyduck]

Can you suggest then, what data might be missing from the de-complied/re-compiled version. Its about 75% that of the original, that seems like a lot of Data to have lost.

Not really. Inside the bgl file are a series of sections and then a series of lists of elemenets and then a set of elements. We are told that MS used BglComp to compile their files however we are aware that they seem to have managed some things that we cannot with the XMLsource. It may well be that the compiler available to us is more efficient at handling the sections or lists etc.

It is also possible the decompiler does not decompile everything - though to be honest I think we do get it all.

In fact the only test to consider important is that if you take a given bgl file, decompile it and recompile it that the airport or whatever is the same. If oyu do find anything missing with our decompiler then let us know.

 

[Geoff_D]

Not really. Inside the bgl file are a series of sections and then a series of lists of elemenets and then a set of elements. We are told that MS used BglComp to compile their files however we are aware that they seem to have managed some things that we cannot with the XMLsource. It may well be that the compiler available to us is more efficient at handling the sections or lists etc.

It is also possible the decompiler does not decompile everything - though to be honest I think we do get it all.

In fact the only test to consider important is that if you take a given bgl file, decompile it and recompile it that the airport or whatever is the same. If oyu do find anything missing with our decompiler then let us know.

That raises an interesting question:

Would there be a significant speed change - load / run, beween the original scenry BGL files, and ones re-compiled with the supplied SDK's bglcomp. ?

I would tend to agree with you that the original compiler might either be less efficient, or is putting extra data into the original bgl files.

Interesting exercise would be to write/run a script to de-compile, then re-compile all the ( say airport) .bgls, and see what happend when the Sim was run !!!

Fun stuff !!

Geoff