xfdmaster.library C rewrite/port for AmigaOS 4.1

As I posted already in another thread I am doing a rewrite/port of the xfdmaster.library for AmigaOS 4.1.

As all of the library code was in 680x0 assembler much of the work has been spent decoding this code and rewriting it in C. As rewriting in this way all of the decruncher slaves would be way too much work I am concentrating on simply porting the main API functions and leaving pretty much all the rest to the 680x0 emulator in the OS.

As I have already implemented support for PPC native slaves (both internal and external) slaves can be ported to native code one at a time (already ported slaves are XPK and MMCMP).

While almost all of the API functions should already be working the following are still on my "To Do" list before I will make my first non-WIP release of this library:
- xfdRelocate()
- xfdStripHunks()
- xfdTestHunkStructure[|New|Flags]()

FWIW I might end leaving these for the 680x0 emulator to handle as most people will probably not be needing them.

22.8.2014:
What is new since the last WIP version is that the xfdRecogLinker() function is now enabled and working. It was crashing before because I didn't use ET_SaveParamRegs, so the contents of register A5 were trashed when returning to a 680x0 library user.

24.8.2014:
Removed WIP download links as the first release version is now up (OS4Depot download is not yet available):
http://www.a500.org/downloads/libraries/xfdmaster_lib_7z.readme

@salass00

Thanks !!

@salass00

Thanks a lot !

@salass00

13 years later, XFD lives again. Thanks Fredrik.

Now we need a patch of Open() to automatically use XFD when loading a file

Excuse my ignorance but what is XFD ?

Thank you

@zzd10h

Quote:

My thoughts exactly

@broadblues

Ah, it's for decrunching files. Why would anyone crunch files in the first place in this day and age? But dealing already crunched files is useful I suppose.

@broadblues

Considering the amount of wasted space in native exe's being able to crunh them would save an awful lot of space, eg mplayer crunches to half it's size. something that automatically crunched anything going to a specific device like a usb stick would mean faster writing speeds and far greater capacity on small/slow devices. using xpkrake for example takes 3 seconds to pack mplayer, far less time than it would take to copy the 8mb it saves. I really miss powerpacker and powerdata...

But the real point of XFD is it decrunches a lot of data diles in old games and demos, stuff on old pd disks etc without having to find the original crucher program, very handy for classics running os4.

Progress update (23.8.2014):
Rewrote the functions xfdGetHunk() (internally used function) and xfdTestHunkStructureFlags() in C code.

This means that only the following two API functions are remaining to be implemented:
- xfdRelocate()
- xfdStripHunks()

Salass00, GREAT!
A native SQSH decoder would be cool! (used for protracker modules).

@spotUP

I have some code for that.... but SQSH is an XPK sub-format, so it would be far better to write a native xpkSQSH.library. Things could get *seriously* confused otherwise.

First release version is now uploaded to OS4Depot as well as my own website:
http://www.a500.org/downloads/libraries/xfdmaster_lib_7z.readme

great work salass00

@zzd10h

Quote:

To put it simply, XFD is to single file crunchers (gzip, bz2, lzma, xpk, powerpacker, imploder, ...) what XAD is to archivers (lha, 7z, rar, zip, ...).

XFD also allows to scan a file to see if it contains crunched data sections (not all slaves support this functionality but some do, like XPK slave for instance).

XFD was on my hard drive on amiga 2000 years ago.. :) i remember i was using a txt cruncher in one partition.. ah! memories!

Just uploaded version 53.2:

53.2 (25.8.2014)
- Recompiled CPic external slave.
- Recompiled PacPic external slave.
- Ported SZDD external slave.
- Sets new XFDPFF_M68K flag for all slaves containing 680x0 code.
- Wrote a replacement xfdLibInfo command.

gr8 work

Can you port commands too? xfdDecrunch, xfdScan..?

@Elwood

They can't be ported as the source code isn't available but replacements can be written from scratch as I did for xfdLibInfo.

@salass00

Oh OK, thanks