FileParser

FileParser is the abstract root of Blackchirp’s file-parser hierarchy. Every class that imports an external data file — spectroscopic line catalogs, generic two-column XY data, anything else added later — derives from this interface. The class defines four pure-virtual hook points that identify the format and a small set of protected helpers covering the file-system patterns shared by every concrete parser.

Subclass authors implement FileParser::canParse() to recognize their format (typically a suffix check followed by a structural sniff of the first lines), FileParser::formatName() and FileParser::formatDescription() for user-facing labels, and FileParser::fileExtensions() for QFileDialog glob patterns. The protected helpers — FileParser::isFileReadable(), FileParser::hasMatchingExtension(), and FileParser::readFileHeader() — let canParse implementations share a single readable-file check, a case-insensitive suffix match, and an N-line peek without each parser re-implementing them.

The actual parse method that returns data lives on the format-specific subclass because the value type differs by family: CatalogParser adds a parse() → CatalogData hook for spectroscopic line catalogs, and GenericXYParser adds its own parse() → GenericXYData directly. Concrete parsers register themselves with FileParserRegistry during application startup; the registry then dispatches incoming files to the first parser whose canParse returns true. The user-facing import workflow that consumes these parsers is described in Overlays.

API Reference

class FileParser

Abstract interface for file-format parsers.