legacy/libburn/branches/ZeroFourEight/doc/comments

/**
   @author Mario Danic, Thomas Schmitt

   @mainpage Libburnia Documentation Index

   @section intro Introduction

Libburnia is an open-source project for reading, mastering and writing
optical discs.
For now this means CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+R/DL, DVD-RW,
DVD-R, BD-RE.

Not supported yet are DVD-R/DL, HD-DVD, BD-R (blue ray). Testers for
DVD-R/DL are wanted, though. BD-R programming efforts would be made
if an interested tester contacts us.

The project comprises of several more or less interdependent parts which
together strive to be a usable foundation for application development.
These are libraries, language bindings, and middleware binaries which emulate
classical (and valuable) Linux tools.

Our scope is currently Linux 2.4 and 2.6 only. For ports to other systems
we would need : login on a development machine resp. a live OS on CD or DVD,
advise from a system person about the equivalent of Linux sg or FreeBSD CAM,
volunteers for testing of realistic use cases.

We have a well tested code base for burning data and audio CDs and many DVD
types. The burn API is quite comprehensively documented and can be used to
build a presentable application.
We have a functional binary which emulates the core use cases of cdrecord in
order to prove that usability, and in order to allow you to explore libburn's
scope by help of existing cdrecord frontends.

ISO 9660 filesystems with Rock Ridge and Joliet extensions can be created
and manipulated quite freely. This capability together with our burn capability
makes possible a single binary application which covers all steps of image
composition, updating and writing. Quite unique in the Linux world.

@subsection components The project components (list subject to growth, hopefully):

- libburn  is the library by which preformatted data get onto optical media.
           It uses either /dev/sgN (e.g. on kernel 2.4 with ide-scsi) or
           /dev/srM or /dev/hdX (e.g. on kernel 2.6).
           libburn is the foundation of our cdrecord emulation. Its code is
           independent of cdrecord. Its DVD capabilities are learned from
           studying the code of dvd+rw-tools and MMC-5 specs. No code but only
           the pure SCSI knowledge has been taken from dvd+rw-tools, though.

- libisofs is the library to pack up hard disk files and directories into a
           ISO 9660 disk image. This may then be brought to CD via libburn.
           libisofs is to be the foundation of our upcoming mkisofs emulation.

- libisoburn is an add-on to libburn and libisofs which coordinates both and
           also allows to grow ISO-9660 filesystem images on multi-session
           media as well as on overwriteable media via the same API.
           All media peculiarities are handled automatically.

- cdrskin  is a limited cdrecord compatibility wrapper for libburn.
           cdrecord is a powerful GPL'ed burn program included in Joerg
           Schilling's cdrtools. cdrskin strives to be a second source for
           the services traditionally provided by cdrecord. Additionally it
           provides libburn's DVD/BD capabilities, where only -sao is
           compatible with cdrecord.
           cdrskin does not contain any bytes copied from cdrecord's sources.
           Many bytes have been copied from the message output of cdrecord
           runs, though.
           See cdrskin/README for more.

- xorriso  is an application of all three libraries which creates, loads,
           manipulates and writes ISO 9660 filesystem images with
           Rock Ridge extensions. Manipulation is not only adding or
           overwriting of files but also deletion, renaming, and attribute
           changing. An incremental backup feature is provided.
           See xorriso/README for more

- "test"   is a collection of application gestures and examples given by the
           authors of the library features. The burn API example of libburn
           is named test/libburner.c . The API for media information inquiry is
           demonstrated in test/telltoc.c .
           Explore these examples if you look for inspiration.

We strive to be a responsive upstream.

Our libraries are committed to maintain older feature sets in newer versions.
This applies to source code headers (API) as well as to linkable objects (ABI).
The only exception from this rule is about non-release versions x.y.*[13579]
which are allowed to introduce new features, change those new features in
any way and even may revoke such new features before the next release of
x.y.*[02468]. As soon as it is released, a feature is promised to persist.

SONAMES:
libburn.so.4 (since 0.3.4, March 2007),
libisofs.so.6 (since 0.6.2, February 2008),
libisoburn.so.1 (since 0.1.0, February 2008).


   @section using Using the libraries

Our build system is based on autotools.
User experience tells us that you will need at least autotools version 1.7.

To build libburn and its subprojects it should be sufficient to go into
its toplevel directory and execute

-  ./bootstrap  (needed if you downloaded from SVN)

-  ./configure

-  make

To make the libraries accessible for running resp. developing applications 

-  make install

Both libraries are written in C language and get built by autotools.
Thus we expect them to be useable by a wide range of Linux-implemented
languages and development tools.


@section libburner Libburner

libburner is a minimal demo application for the library libburn 
(see: libburn/libburn.h) as provided on  http://libburnia-project.org .
It can list the available devices, can blank a CD-RW or DVD-RW and
can burn to recordable CD and recordable single layer DVD.

It's main purpose, nevertheless, is to show you how to use libburn and also
to serve the libburnia team as reference application. libburner does indeed
define the standard way how above three gestures can be implemented and
stay upward compatible for a good while.

   @subsection libburner-help Libburner --help
<pre>
Usage: test/libburner
       [--drive <address>|<driveno>|"-"]  [--audio]
       [--blank_fast|--blank_full|--format_overwrite]
       [--try_to_simulate]
       [--multi]  [<one or more imagefiles>|"-"]
Examples
A bus scan (needs rw-permissions to see a drive):
  test/libburner --drive -
Burn a file to drive chosen by number, leave appendable:
  test/libburner --drive 0 --multi my_image_file
Burn a file to drive chosen by persistent address, close:
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc my_image_file
Blank a used CD-RW (is combinable with burning in one run):
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc --blank_fast
Blank a used DVD-RW (is combinable with burning in one run):
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc --blank_full
Format a DVD-RW to avoid need for blanking before re-use:
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc --format_overwrite
Burn two audio tracks (to CD only):
  lame --decode -t /path/to/track1.mp3 track1.cd
  test/dewav /path/to/track2.wav -o track2.cd
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc --audio track1.cd track2.cd
Burn a compressed afio archive on-the-fly:
  ( cd my_directory ; find . -print | afio -oZ - ) | \
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc -
To be read from *not mounted* media via: afio -tvZ /dev/hdc
</pre>
libburner has two companions, telltoc and dewav, which help to perform some
peripheral tasks of burning.

telltoc prints a table of content (sessions, tracks and leadouts), it tells
about type and state of media, and also is able to provide the necessary
multi-session information for program mkisofs option -C. Especially helpful
are its predictions with "Write multi" and "Write modes" where availability
of "TAO" indicates that tracks of unpredicted length can be written.
See: test/telltoc --help.

dewav extracts raw byte-swapped audio data from files of format .wav (MS WAVE)
or .au (SUN Audio). See example in libburner --help.

   @subsection libburner-source Sourceode of libburner

Click on blue names of functions, structures, variables, etc in oder to
get to the according specs of libburn API or libburner sourcecode.
 
@include libburner.c
*/