<title>Core client: file structure</title> 
<body bgcolor=ffffff>
<h2>Core client: file structure</h2> 
<p>
The core client runs in a <b>BOINC home directory</b>.
It creates and uses the following files and directories within the
home directory: 
<ul>
<li>
<b>prefs.xml</b>:
The user's global preferences; see below.
<li>
<b>client_state.xml</b> describes of the files,
application, workunits and results present on this client.
<li>
<b>Account files</b> describes the participant's account
in each subscribed project,
including the resource share and project-specific preferences.
It contains no host-specific information.
The name of the account file is <b>account_PROJECT.xml</b>,
where PROJECT is an encoded version of the project's master URL.
<li>
A directory <b>projects</b>,
which contains a <b>project directory</b> for each subscribed project.
The name of a project directory is an encoded
version of the project's master URL.
The project directory contains all files (inputs,
outputs, executables) related to the project.
<li>
<b>slots</b>: this directory contains one subdirectory for each
CPU "slot" (normally there are as many slots as the host has CPUs).
The subdirectories are named 0, 1, ... N-1.
</ul>
<p>
Each result executes in particular slot directory.
The core client creates "soft link" files in the slot directory,
linking to the corresponding files in the project directory.

<h3>Format of account files</h3>
The format of an account file is as follows:
<pre>
&lt;account>
    &lt;master_url>http://www.myproject.com/&lt;/master_url>
    &lt;authenticator>3f7b90793a0175ad0bda68684e8bd136&lt;/authenticator>
    &lt;resource_share>1&lt;/resource_share>
    [ &lt;show_email/> ]
    [ &lt;send_email/> ]
    &lt;project_specific>
        ...
    &lt;/project_specific>
&lt;/account>
</pre>
Note: everything from &lt;resource_share> onwards is
the contents of the "project_prefs" field of the user database record,
less the enclosing &lt;project_preferences> tags.

<h3>Format of prefs.xml</h3>
<p>
This format of prefs.xml is as follows:

<pre>
&lt;preferences>
    &lt;prefs_mod_time>1030128387&lt;/prefs_mod_time>
    &lt;from_project>http://www.myproject.com/&lt;/from_project>
    &lt;from_scheduler>http://server3.myproject.com/cgi-bin/scheduler_cgi&lt;/from_scheduler>
    &lt;mod_time>2&lt;/mod_time>
    &lt;high_water_days>2&lt;/high_water_days>
    &lt;low_water_days>1&lt;/low_water_days>
&lt;/preferences>

XXX this is not complete
</pre>