# PrusaSlicer Profiles Module

This module handles the parsing, management, and evaluation of PrusaSlicer configuration profiles (`.ini` files). It supports profile inheritance, compatibility evaluation using PrusaSlicer's expression language, and generating merged configurations for slicing.

## Core Components

### 1. `profiles.py`
- **`Profile` Class**: Represents a single PrusaSlicer profile (Printer, Filament, or Print).
  - Stores configuration as a dictionary (`conf_dict`).
  - Handles inheritance logic via `generate_inherited_confs`.
  - Supports compatibility checks via `evaluate_compatibility`.
- **`generate_conf` Function**: Recursively merges inherited profiles into a single configuration dictionary.

### 2. `profile_cache.py`
- **`LocalCache` Class**: Manages a collection of profiles loaded from disk.
  - Scans directories for `.ini` files and tracks changes using file metadata.
  - Categorizes profiles into `printers`, `print`, and `filament`.
  - `evaluate_compatibility`: Checks which filament and print profiles are compatible with specific printer profiles.
  - `generate_conf_writer`: Creates a `ConfigWriter` by merging a printer, print, and one or more filament profiles (multi-extruder support).
- **`ConfigWriter` Class**: Helper to write the merged configuration to a file (e.g., for passing to a slicer or embedding in a 3MF).
- **Utility Functions**: `ini_to_dict` and `ini_content_to_dict` use `ConfigParser` to parse PrusaSlicer's INI format.

### 3. `expression_parser.py`
- Implements a recursive descent parser for PrusaSlicer's expression language (used in `compatible_printers_condition` and similar fields).
- **AST Nodes**: `ExprNode`, `LiteralNode`, `VarNode`, `IndexNode`, `UnaryOpNode`, `BinaryOpNode`.
- **`Parser` Class**: Tokenizes and parses expression strings into an AST that can be evaluated against a configuration dictionary.

### 4. `prusaslicer_fields.py`
- Loads metadata about PrusaSlicer configuration fields from `prusaslicer_fields.json` and `prusaslicer_modifier_fields.csv`.
- Provides `search_in_db` and `search_in_mod_db` for looking up field definitions, types, and labels.

## Data Files
- `prusaslicer_fields.json`: Exhaustive database of PrusaSlicer settings, including types, default values, and labels.
- `prusaslicer_modifier_fields.csv`: List of fields that are valid as modifiers.

## Typical Workflow
1. Initialize `LocalCache`.
2. Call `cache.load([paths_to_profiles])`.
3. Select a printer, print, and filament profile(s).
4. (Optional) Evaluate compatibility using `cache.evaluate_compatibility`.
5. Generate a merged config using `cache.generate_conf_writer`.
6. Use `ConfigWriter` to output the final configuration for slicing.