libburn/doc/comments

/**
   @author Mario Danic, Thomas Schmitt

   @mainpage Libburn Documentation Index

   @section intro Introduction

Libburn is an open-source library for reading, mastering and writing
optical discs. For now this means only CD-R and CD-RW.

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 and we will have a hard time to widen
this for now, because of our history. The project could need advise from or
membership of skilled kernel people and people who know how to talk CD/DVD
drives into doing things.

We do have a workable code base for burning data CDs, though. The burn API is
quite comprehensively documented and can be used to build a presentable
application.
We do have a functional binary which emulates parts 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.

@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/hdX (e.g. on kernel 2.6).
           libburn is the foundation of our cdrecord emulation.

- 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.

- 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.
           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.

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

We plan to be a responsive upstream. Bear with us.


   @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://libburn.pykix.org .
It can list the available devices, can blank a CD-RW and
can burn to CD-R or CD-RW.

It's main purpose, nevertheless, is to show you how to use libburn and also
to serve the libburn 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>|"-"]
       [--verbose <level>] [--blank_fast|--blank_full]
       [--burn_for_real|--try_to_simulate] [--stdin_size <bytes>]
       [<imagefile>|"-"]
Examples
A bus scan (needs rw-permissions to see a drive):
  test/libburner --drive -
Burn a file to drive chosen by number:
  test/libburner --drive 0 --burn_for_real my_image_file
Burn a file to drive chosen by persistent address:
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc --burn_for_real my_image_file
Blank a used CD-RW (is combinable with burning in one run):
  test/libburner --drive 0 --blank_fast
Burn a compressed afio archive on-the-fly, pad up to 700 MB:
  ( cd my_directory ; find . -print | afio -oZ - ) | \
  test/libburner --drive /dev/hdc --burn_for_real --stdin_size 734003200  -
To be read from *not mounted* CD via:
   afio -tvZ /dev/hdc
Program tar would need a clean EOF which our padded CD cannot deliver.
</pre>

   @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
*/