L3P and LGEO in Linux Issue

[Jude Parrill]

OK, so I was attempting to use the Linux version of L3P to convert an MPD into a POV-ready file for rendering, when I noticed an inordinate amount of files were not being found. Worse yet, a lot of the files that supposedly weren't being found seemed parts that should be there. Here's a small sampling of the parts not being found:

Not in LGEO: 3034.dat Plate 2 x 8
Not in LGEO: 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2
Not in LGEO: 3020.dat Plate 2 x 4
Not in LGEO: 3022.dat Plate 2 x 2
Not in LGEO: 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4
Not in LGEO: 3031.dat Plate 4 x 4

So I looked into it, and found out those files DO EXIST in my lgeo library, so now I was really perplexed. Now, it would be one thing of no files were being found, but according to the end summary, 14 files were found, so clearly it isn't completely screwed up.

Furthermore, my "lgeo" file is in my LDraw folder, and I get the same files missing message whether I set the LGEODIR environmental variable or not (I use a script which sets it). In fact, the only way I could get a complete failure was to purposely set the LGEODIR to a wrong directory, which led to an expected "cannot find lg_elements.lst" error.

My question, then, is what am I doing wrong? Clearly L3P at least knows the lg_elements.lst and lg_colors.lst are, or it would be throwing errors about that at me. It's also finding some, but not all, parts. I'm really baffled right now, and any help would be welcome.

[Steffen]

a frequent error when using software ported from Windows to Linux is that somewhere in the software
the backslash \ is hardcoded as path separator. On Linux, this will fail, as it only accepts /.
Windows will tolerate both / and \.
The usual effect of that is that files aren't found.
So I suspect such an error here.

[Jude Parrill]

Steffen,

That certainly seems like a reasonable explanation, as I'm really scratching my head since everything seems to be working fine except for the fact that it doesn't find certain files.

The only thing that confuses me, though, is:
- I'm using the Linux version of L3P, not the Windows version via Wine (like I do with MLCad).
- It works with SOME parts, but not all. Which ones seems largely arbitrary.

Perhaps I should e-mail Lars...

[Steffen]

yes, I understood you're using the Linux version.
However, it is compiled probably from the same sourcecode like the Windows version,
and in that, probably some hardcoded \'s could be present

[Orion Pobursky]

As I recall there's a Linux version so you could just switch to using LDView's POV export. See if that solves the problem.

[Travis Cobbs]

My guess would be that you have the files on a case-sensitive file system, and L3P hasn't been designed to support that. On a case-sensitive file system, lg_3034.inc is not the same as LG_3034.INC, so if L3P is looking using lower case, and the files themselves are in upper case (or vice versa), then they won't be found.

Orion suggested you use LDView, so I feel obliged to mention that LDView doesn't look for the LGEO files at all; it simply uses the mapping inside LGEO.xml. So, since LGEO.xml uses lower case for all filenames, then the resulting POV files won't work if your LGEO files are stored on the file system with upper case filenames (unless POV-Ray itself handles this). LDView in Linux handles case sensitivity in LDraw files by searching for files in a case-insensitive fashion if it can't find the files using the original case from the file. Unfortunately, this is slower, but it does work.

[Roland Melkert]

If this is the case using a small e.g. fat32 (virtual) partition might solve your problem. Or just put the files on a usb flash drive.

[Lars C. Hassing]

L3P has actually supported case-sensitive file systems (Linux) since 2001,
but I can see it got rusty with the introduction of LDrawIni (L3IsDir) in 2004.
I don't think I have heard about problems with p and parts before,
there really hasn't been much feedback (e-mail) from Linux users.

A few days ago Niels Horn brought it to my attention and I looked into it.
It was quite easy to fix the problem with p and parts,
since L3P already had the code for it,
I just had to use it in LDrawIni.

I have uploaded a new Linux build:
http://hassings.dk/l3/l3p.html#download

I have only tested p and parts,
please let me know if it fixes your LGEO problems.
/Lars