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ZIP file reader encapsulated in PACKFILE functions |
Tobi Vollebregt
Member #1,031
March 2001
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A few days ago I downloaded the 4.1.18 WIP. I noticed the packfile functions used vtables since 4.1.18. So immediately I thought finally zip support! Anyway, I've been writing the attached zip file reader today, and I need some people to test it and I need some feedback, so it would be great if you could just make a little test with it and report back here whether you had any problems. You need Allegro 4.1.18 and zlib installed. documentation (also in zipfile.h):
EDIT: attached new version ________________________________________ |
razor
Member #2,256
April 2002
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Sweet, I'll try it later, but it sounds really cool. Whoooo Oregon State University |
Peter Hull
Member #1,136
March 2001
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I've thought for a while that this was the way to go. Then we won't need the dat utility any more; we can just use (Win)Zip. Nice one Tobi! Pete
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Avenger
Member #4,550
April 2004
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I've seen a few games using zip for compression.. It is really great that we now have an addon to do it:). Thanks a lot!
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Elias
Member #358
May 2000
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Add a complete example, I'm too lazy to try it without one Sounds very useful in any case. -- |
Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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This sounds simply awesome. I'll grab a copy of it and see if I can check it out. |
A J
Member #3,025
December 2002
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have i missed the point ? ___________________________ |
Richard Phipps
Member #1,632
November 2001
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To save space? |
Tobi Vollebregt
Member #1,031
March 2001
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Thanks! I'll do some more testing by myself today and then I'll upload it to the depot. I'll also add an example. And btw, the main reason IMO to use zip for game data is because of easy maintenance, not necessarily compression (you would zip the download anyway). Just make a dir with game data, right click->add to zip and voilà, there's your datafile. ________________________________________ |
Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
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Quote: not necessarily compression (you would zip the download anyway) It's still nice and polite to leave as small of a foot print on disk as reasonably possible. -- |
A J
Member #3,025
December 2002
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hard drive space is cheap. ___________________________ |
Avenger
Member #4,550
April 2004
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I would like to use uncompressed zips in my program.. mainly because that would make my game easier to modify.. And it is much better to have one big file instead of thousands of small ones
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Dennis
Member #1,090
July 2003
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Quote: it is not worth the effort of compressing individual bits.
an "individual bit" can't be compressed any further:P --- 0xDB | @dennisbusch_de --- |
razor
Member #2,256
April 2002
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It is nice to have all your files in one file. That way you don't flood peoples system with files, I know that I've noticed windows deals with lots of files much slower than a single large file. Whoooo Oregon State University |
Tobi Vollebregt
Member #1,031
March 2001
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I've updated the zip attached to my first post. Fixed some unicode handling with trace, added some assertions and an example.c and example.zip btw, I'm thinking about a way to read the directory entries from the zip file. Now I would like to know, would you think it's useful to know more about a file than name+size (like crc, attributes, compressed size, comment, etc.)? And what API would you prefer? Like this? Or something else?
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Elias
Member #358
May 2000
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It could be interesting to use an API similiar to allegro's directory API: al_find_first, al_find_next, al_find_close, for_each_file_ex But then, I'd actually prefer to get the number of entries and then use an index, myself Hm, and this makes me wonder.. haven't some people worked on designs for a simple virtual file system? Seems like a good time to look at such designs now - they already must include an API to list files and get various information about them. -- |
Indeterminatus
Member #737
November 2000
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That's some nice work you did there! Great job! About the additional information (crc, attributes etc.) I'd say it wouldnt hurt to have them ready . _______________________________ |
Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
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Quote: hard drive space is cheap. I whole heartedly disagree. Hard drive space may be cheaper, but not everyone is able to upgrade as needed. The more games that go by uncompressed, the more hard drive space will be needed, thus forcing the user to upgrade to bigger drives. Cheap or not, it's still $$$ not everyone has or is able to spend. "It's cheap" is a poor excuse because "it's cheap" is still too expensive for some. Do you think I'd be stuck with a Geforce 2 MX video card if I could get a Geforce 4 Ti because "it's cheap"? Durring development is a different matter of course, but if HD space was such a non-issue, why use PNG, MP3/Ogg, and MPG/AVI/Ogg at all when TGA, WAV, and uncompressed BMPs have been around forever (and are directly supported by Allegro) and serve the same purpose? Now, if, and that's a big if, all your game data is precompressed PNG and Ogg (and even FLAC), then I can see compressed zip files as being unneeded (and potentially hindering), but your average game (especially average Allegro game) has plenty of uncompressed data. -- |
Tobi Vollebregt
Member #1,031
March 2001
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The API is now like this: I'm gonna send a mail to matthew to add it to the resource dir. I think the latest version (only on my HD at this moment) is fully unicode-aware now (even when debugging) and all others things seems to be fine. If you want to know the crc or other file props I'll just let you hack into my sources , I don't really feel the need to add it. ________________________________________ |
Steve Terry
Member #1,989
March 2002
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Quote: an "individual bit" can't be compressed any further Lzip will prove you wrong! ___________________________________ |
Richard Phipps
Member #1,632
November 2001
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With Quantum Mechanics it could.. |
Jose Cuervo
Member #5,197
November 2004
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Has anyone thought of adding tar.gz support? Because I generally have smaller files with it, like 1/5 smaller. |
Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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tar.gz would be more difficult, as the directory format (tar) is compressed globably, so it would have to be completely uncompressed and loaded into memory before anything can be read. -- |
Daniel Schlyder
Member #257
April 2000
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And if you want better compression, you should use LZMA. |
Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Or if you want a truely fast decompressor, try LZO. On a p1 133 it does about 16MB/s, LZMA does about 8MB/s on a p3 1ghtz... -- |
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