Overview

Spectre is a java library that provides simple read/write capabilities to aspects. Aspects are single dimension data extracted from replays and organized in to groups described by a "path". An example of such a path is /basic/position/hero which will contain the X/Y position data for all of the heroes each tick.

Purpose

The primary goal of spectre is to make it as simple as possible to read/write and most importantly extend the set of aspects available for analysis.

Usage

Spectre will be available as a single .jar file that can be included in analysis code in order to have access to the aspects library. Basic usage of the library can be found by examining the example class at:

 /aspectSerializer/src/main/java/skadistats/WritePosition.java 

Extending

Adding a new aspect is done through the following steps:

1. Create protobuf definition

Create a new protobuf definition file under

/aspectSerializer/src/main/proto/aspect/<category>

where category is either basic or derived depending on the type of aspect you are creating. Make sure you include

option java_package = "skadistats.spectre.proto.<category"

as part of your protobuf file so the generated classes are placed in the correct location. Each protobuf message name must be globally unique due to the way they are used within the API, however you can use the same protobuf messages for multiple different aspect path definitions.

2. Add your new aspect to msgtypes.properties

Edit /aspectSerializer/src/main/proto/msgtypes.properties and add your aspect definition. The definition format is: : :

protobuf class

The protobuf class is the Java class name including the container class which is named after your .proto file. So if you create a HeroPosition message definition inside of position.proto then the protobuf class will be Position.HeroPosition.

msg id

Number used to identify message types as part of serialization. Each message id must be unique. Please use monotonically increasing values in this file.

aspect path

This is the aspect path which is used to identify the given aspect when reading/writing it.

3. Recreate spectre .jar

Running ant clean && ant in the spectre root should be enough. The resulting jar is located at /aspectSerializer/target/spectre-1.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar.

Ruby

The Ruby gem requires a modified version of the beefcake protobuf compiler. First grab mfajer/beefcake and install it with rake install. Then run ant pkg-ruby and install the resulting gem in the dist folder.

To-Do

• Tests (duh)
• Fix resulting jar name to just be spectre-1.0.jar
• Reduce size of jar by removing some of the stuff that's packed in it