[libredwg] Issues that need further work

[Rodrigo Rodrigues da Silva]

GSoC projects are mostly entry-level projects. That is the goal of
GSoC.

I see a lot of enthusiasm on the candidates, and I am glad about that.

Still, there are currently a few key missing features that make
LibreDWG useless for production use.

0. the handle system doesn't really work. I often get wild handles
(null pointers or pointers to garbage). Appart from that, there should
be a better way to access objects pointed by handles, wich I suggest
be addressed by the LibreDWG API GSoC proposal.

1. there is no memory dellocation at all. LibreDWG is a major memory
leak. I started some work with dwg_free.c, including dwg.h and
reimplementing the macros to make them dwg_free_entity_FOO() and call
them recursively upon a dwg_free(&dwg_data), but at some point it
reached a dead end and I tried to use a garbage collector. Not a good
idea, so I think we should get back to manual memory freeing.

2. No automated testing. There is a merge proposal sent by Guruprasad
Rane a long time ago that partially addresses it. It needs some
polishing, plus we need a copyright assingment from him.

I don't have much time for libredwg now, but I hope someone else could
work on these issues.

happy hacking,

-- 
Rodrigo Rodrigues da Silva

http://metamaquina.com.br
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