File Structure

Main VisDic binary file is called visdic (or visdic.exe on Windows systems). After program is started, the visdic.cfg file is searched, first in your home directory, then in a current directory. This file contains information about colors, fonts and mainly paths to dictionaries, which the program works with. VisDic also need some pictures stored in a pixmaps directory. The release usually contains a file called NEWS where you can find information about changes in the current version.

Every dictionary is referrenced byt its core name, say dict. However, this file name does not exist, because all the database consists of other files, which is created by this name and suffixed by the following extensions:

• dict.cfg - configuration file of the dictionary
• dict.def - definition of the XML file structure
• dict.xml - human readable XML file
• dict.{eid,ent,wid,wrd} - inner binary representation of XML file
• dict.new - human readable XML file, see below

The dictionary uses two representations of data - XML one and the inner binary one. In case, that the inner representation does not exist, but the XML does, VisDic automatically tries to parse the XML file and to create the rest. First, an existence of .def file is checked. When it does not exist, VisDic will create it, otherwise the existing definition is used. Next, .eid, .ent, .wid and .wrd is checked. If some of these files are missing VisDic builds them according to .xml and .def file. Finally, VisDic tries to load .cfg file. If it does not exist, the default one is generated.

When you edit the dictionary using VisDic, all of the changes are stored in the inner representation only. If you wish them to take effect in XML version too, you have to export data to XML file via "Dictionary" item in VisDic main menu.

.new file has a special meaning. Once it is present in the directory, the binary data are considered as an old ones, and after a start of VisDic, .new file is renamed to .xml and the binary representation is then rebuild from this .xml file again. This mechanism can serve as an easy update of dictionaries in future, mainly via setup file on Windows platforms.

When you need to force rebuilding of the inner binary representation of some dictionary from its XML file, select "Rebuild from XML" from "Dictionary" item in VisDic main menu.