• The Windows path must come before the Linux path, and they must be separated by a tab, not spaces.
• Linux path names are case-sensitive.
• Do not use slashes (\ or /) at the end of the linktab paths.
Converting Paths between UNIX and Windows (Linktab)
The Linktab object gives access to information contained in the linktab.ini file, which automatically translates paths between Unix and NT environments. When XSI finds a linktab.ini file, it uses it to ensure that scenes will remain compatible across platforms.
Each line in a linktab file contains a Windows-style path and a UNIX-style path, indicating where XSI or resources such as textures are located on both operating systems. This allows access to required files regardless of operating system.
Understanding the Structure of the linktab.ini File
Most linktab file contain only one line, indicating where XSI is located on both platforms. Here’s a sample linktab file:
c:\Softimage /usr/Softimage
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• The Windows path must come before the Linux path, and they must be separated by a tab, not spaces. • Linux path names are case-sensitive. • Do not use slashes (\ or /) at the end of the linktab paths. |
If you are using textures or memory-mapped images, you must have entries that point to the directories containing them.
You can use an exclamation mark to distinguish a mounted volume from the rest of the path. For example, if \\foobar\users\fred (Windows) is equivalent to /home/fred (Linux) and f:\foobar\users is a mounted volume, the line in the linktab file would look like this:
\\foobar\users!fred /home/fred
The linktab file must be present on the master and slave computers, in the directory specified by the SI_LINKTAB_LOCATION environment variable.
If the scene was imported from SOFTIMAGE|3D, XSI searches in SI_LOCATION for linktab.ini; you must define SI_LOCATION in setenv.bat (Windows) or .xsi_2.0 (Linux).
SI_LINKTAB_LOCATION can define both the path and file name, or just the path; if no file name is explicitly set, XSI assumes the name will be linktab.ini.
To set the environment variable for Windows
set SI_LINKTAB_LOCATION=c:\Softimage\linktab.ini
How XSI Uses the linktab.ini File
When XSI finds a linktab.ini file, it uses it to ensure that scenes will remain compatible across platforms in this way:
1. When XSI is launched it looks for the linktab.ini file in either of these directories:
- the directory specified by the SI_LINKTAB_LOCATION environment variable
- the softimage system directory (XSI_HOME)
2. If it finds the file, it builds an internal table of path translation (NT to UNIX and UNIX to NT).
Internally, XSI builds the list of all network drives currently connected to the NT machine as well as the associated mount point. This list in conjunction with the linktab.ini file provides the necessary information to translate paths from and to UNIX.
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When... |
XSI translates path references in this way... |
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Loading a scene |
UNIX path are translated (if possible) to the equivalent mount point and then to the corresponding network drive letter UNC references are translated to the corresponding network drive letter |
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Saving a scene |
Network drive letters are translated to the given UNC mount point and then to the corresponding UNIX path (if an entry is found in the linktab.ini table) |
Example: using the linktab.ini file to translate path references
For example, user1 and user2's accounts on SGI are /home/user1 and /home/user2 which are in fact a logical link to /mnt1/allusers/user1 and /mnt1/allusers/user2.
On the NT machine, a network drive is connected (using NFS) to sgi1:/mnt1/allusers and drive h:.
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The first path argument of each line is the NT path while the second path argument on each line is the UNIX equivalent. |
When XSI encounters the path /home/user1/... when loading a scene, it translates it to h:/user1/... which is the equivalent NT path. In this example, the true mount point is sgi1:/mnt1/allusers and the exclamation mark indicates that only that portion of the path should be looked up in the current list of NFS network drive.
When saving the scene, the path will be re-translated to the proper UNIX path /home/user1/... which allows scenes to remain accessible from both platforms.
SOFTIMAGE|XSI v6.02