Description
Created by: patriciogonzalezvivo
Although #include routines are defined by Khronos as an extension they are left for the environment/framework running the GL driver to implement. The reason for that is the required access to file system. Implementing #include routines are fairly straight forward with a couple of gotchas to avoid, like: relative paths and infinite recursions.
Most serious CG engines support them because their advantages on modularity, reusability and clearer code.
For Processing this also could mean support for LYGIA a rich shader library pack with useful resources for creative coders and artist.
I made a simple implementations of a #include parser in this repository together with some examples on how it can be use.
void loadSource(String current_folder, String filename, ArrayList<String> source) {
println("search for", filename, "in", current_folder);
File file = new File(current_folder,filename);
String url = file.getPath().substring(1);
println("open", url);
String[] lines = loadStrings(url);
for (int i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
String line = lines[i];
String line_trim = line.trim();
if (line_trim.startsWith("#include")){
String include_file = line_trim.substring("#include".length()).replace("\"", "").trim();
File f = new File(current_folder,include_file);
loadSource(f.getParent(), f.getName(), source);
} else {
source.add(line + System.getProperty("line.separator") );
}
}
}Adding this feature to createShader() to parse both vert and frag shaders shouldn't be hard and potentially bring numerous advantages.