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On Linux, DFHack acts as a library that shadows parts of the SDL API using LD_PRELOAD.
DFHack doesn't have any kind of system of code snapshots in place, so you will have to get code from the github repository using git. Having a 'git' package installed is the minimal requirement, but some sort of git gui or git integration for your favorite text editor/IDE will certainly help.
The code resides here: https://github.com/peterix/dfhack
If you just want to compile DFHack or work on it by contributing patches, it's quite enough to clone from the read-only address:
git clone git://github.com/peterix/dfhack.git cd dfhack git submodule init git submodule update
If you want to get really involved with the development, create an account on github, make a clone there and then use that as your remote repository instead. Detailed instructions are beyond the scope of this document. If you need help, join us on IRC (#dfhack channel on freenode).
DFHack is meant to be installed into an existing DF folder, so get one ready.
For building, you need a 32-bit version of GCC. For example, to build DFHack on a 64-bit distribution like Arch, you'll need the multilib development tools and libraries.
Before you can build anything, you'll also need cmake. It is advisable to also get ccmake on distributions that split the cmake package into multiple parts.
For the code generation parts, you need perl and the XML::LibXML and XML::LibXSLT perl packages. You should be able to find them in your distro repositories (on Arch linux 'perl-xml-libxml' and 'perl-xml-libxslt').
Building is fairly straightforward. Enter the build folder and start the build like this:
cd build cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:string=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/user/DF make install
Obviously, replace the install path with path to your DF. This will build the library along with the normal set of plugins and install them into your DF folder.
Alternatively, you can use ccmake instead of cmake:
cd build ccmake .. make install
This will show a curses-based interface that lets you set all of the extra options.
You can also use a cmake-friendly IDE like KDevelop 4 or the cmake-gui program.
On Linux, DFHack replaces the SDL library distributed with DF.
DFHack doesn't have any kind of system of code snapshots in place, so you will have to get code from the github repository using git. You will need some sort of Windows port of git, or a GUI. Some examples:
- http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/ - this is a command line version of git for windows. Most tutorials on git usage will apply.
- http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/ - this puts a pretty, graphical face on top of msysgit :)
The code resides here: https://github.com/peterix/dfhack
If you just want to compile DFHack or work on it by contributing patches, it's quite enough to clone from the read-only address:
git clone git://github.com/peterix/dfhack.git cd dfhack git submodule init git submodule update
The tortoisegit GUI should have the equivalent options included.
If you want to get really involved with the development, create an account on github, make a clone there and then use that as your remote repository instead. Detailed instructions are beyond the scope of this document. If you need help, join us on IRC (#dfhack channel on freenode).
First, you need cmake. Get the win32 installer version from the official site: http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
It has the usual installer wizard. Make sure you let it add its binary folder to your binary search PATH so the tool can be later run from anywhere.
You'll need a copy of Microsoft Visual C++ 2010. The Express version is sufficient. Grab it from Microsoft's site.
For the code generation parts, you'll need perl and XML::LibXML. You can install them like this:
If you already have a different version of perl (for example the one from cygwin), you can run into some trouble. Either remove the other perl install from PATH, or install libxml and libxslt for it instead. Strawberry perl works though and has all the required packages.
There are several different batch files in the build folder along with a script that's used for picking the DF path.
First, run set_df_path.vbs and point the dialog that pops up at your DF folder that you want to use for development. Next, run one of the scripts with generate prefix. These create the MSVC solution file(s):
Then you can either open the solution with MSVC or use one of the msbuild scripts:
When you open the solution in MSVC, make sure you never use the Debug builds. Those aren't binary-compatible with DF. If you try to use a debug build with DF, you'll only get crashes. So pick either Release or RelWithDebInfo build and build the INSTALL target.
The debug scripts actually do RelWithDebInfo builds.
cmake allows you to pick a build type by changing this variable: CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:string=BUILD_TYPE
Without specifying a build type or 'None', cmake uses the CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS variable for building.
Valid and useful build types include 'Release', 'Debug' and 'RelWithDebInfo'. 'Debug' is not available on Windows.
Currently, the only way to use the library is to write a plugin that can be loaded by it. All the plugins can be found in the 'plugins' folder. There's no in-depth documentation on how to write one yet, but it should be easy enough to copy one and just follow the pattern.
The most important parts of DFHack are the Core, Console, Modules and Plugins.
Rudimentary API documentation can be built using doxygen (see build options with ccmake or cmake-gui).
DFHack consists of variously licensed code, but invariably weak copyleft. The main license is zlib/libpng, some bits are MIT licensed, and some are BSD licensed.
Feel free to add your own extensions and plugins. Contributing back to the dfhack repository is welcome and the right thing to do :)
Several things should be kept in mind when contributing to DFHack.
DFhack uses ANSI formatting and four spaces as indentation. Line endings are UNIX. The files use UTF-8 encoding. Code not following this won't make me happy, because I'll have to fix it. There's a good chance I'll make you fix it ;)
You can send patches or make a clone of the github repo and ask me on the IRC channel to pull your code in. I'll review it and see if there are any problems. I'll fix them if they are minor.
Fixes are higher in priority. If you want to work on something, but don't know what, check out http://github.com/peterix/dfhack/issues -- this is also a good place to dump new ideas and/or bugs that need fixing.
If you want to do memory research, you'll need some tools and some knowledge. In general, you'll need a good memory viewer and optionally something to look at machine code without getting crazy :)
Good windows tools include:
Good linux tools:
Using publicly known information and analyzing the game's data is preferred.