tools/dtdesc/c_iff/c_iff.html

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   3 <title>
   4 c_iff - a portable IFF parser
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   8 <h1 align="center">
   9 c_iff - a portable IFF parser
  10 </h1>
  11
  12 <h2>
  13 Contents
  14 </h2>
  15 <ul>
  16  <li>
  17   <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>
  18  </li>
  19  <li>
  20   <a href="#Background">Background</a>
  21  </li>
  22  <li>
  23   <a href="#Portability">Portability</a>
  24  </li>
  25  <li>
  26   <a href="#Installation">Installation</a>
  27  </li>
  28  <li>
  29   <a href="#Documentation">Documentation</a>
  30  </li>
  31  <li>
  32   <a href="#CopLic">Copyright and License</a>
  33  </li>
  34  <li>
  35   <a href="#Author">Author</a>
  36  </li>
  37  <li>
  38   <a href="#VerHis">Version History</a>
  39  </li>
  40 </ul>
  41
  42 <a name="Introduction"></a>
  43 <h2>
  44 Introduction
  45 </h2>
  46 c_iff is a portable IFF parser library written entirely in simple C.
  47 With this library you can read and write IFFs in an easy way.
  48 It is inspired by the Amigas own iffparse.library, but without its
  49 esotheric behaviour.
  50
  51 <a name="Background"></a>
  52 <h2>
  53 Background
  54 </h2>
  55 IFF - Interchange File Format is the Amigas way to store data in a
  56 generic form. An IFF can contain nearly every type of data you can
  57 imagine, e.g. pictures (ILBM), animations (ANIM), sounds (AIFF),
  58 text (FTXT) or all of this in one file. This file can also contain
  59 Meta-information like the authors name or a version-strings.
  60 In the PC-world the name IFF is wrongly attached to the IFF-subtype
  61 ILBM, a picture-format.
  62
  63 <a name="Portability"></a>
  64 <h2>
  65 Portability
  66 </h2>
  67 c_iff is written in clean ANSI-C. It uses only simple functions
  68 from &lt;stdlib.h&gt; and &lt;stdio.h&gt; .
  69 So it should be portable to anything, a C-compiler exists for.
  70 I have tested it on the following machines:
  71
  72 <ul>
  73  <li>
  74   AmigaOS native m68k with different compilers
  75  </li>
  76  <li>
  77   AmigaOS PowerUp PPC with the vbccppc compiler
  78  </li>
  79  <li>
  80   Linux APUS PPC with the gcc compiler
  81  </li>
  82  <li>
  83   Linux SuSE AMD K6 with the gcc compiler
  84  </li>
  85 </ul>
  86
  87 You see, it runs on Big and Little Endian machines.
  88 IFFs are stored in Big Endian order. To write portable code you must
  89 swap the bytes of multibyte numbers before you write them to an IFF
  90 or after you read them from an IFF. c_iff provides the two macros
  91 Swap16IfLE and Swap32IfLE to do this.
  92 If you are on a Big Endian machine you might have to add your machine to c_iff.h
  93 64-bit machines (and 16-bit machines) are now supported too.
  94 Never use your machines (unsigned) char, short, int, long numbers if you deal
  95 with IFFs. Instead use the CARDXX and INTXX definitions from c_iff.h .
  96
  97 <a name="Installation"></a>
  98 <h2>
  99 Installation
 100 </h2>
 101 There is no configure and such things, just a simple Makefile.
 102 This should be usable for any unixoid system, that has cc, ar and ranlib.
 103 Just type "make" to build the statical library libc_iff.a .
 104 To build the documentation, type "make doc". This requieres perl installed.
 105 "make example" builds the example.
 106
 107 <a name="Documentation"></a>
 108 <h2>
 109 Documentation
 110 </h2>
 111 c_iff has a build in documentation. This is generated by a "make doc" .
 112 This produces a file <a href="c_iff.txt">c_iff.txt</a> . This file
 113 is in Amigas AutoDoc format, a simple ASCII-format.
 114 The file <a href="example.c">example.c</a> shows how to use c_iff to read and write
 115 IFFs. The binary is build by "make example" .
 116
 117 <h2>
 118 Limitations
 119 </h2>
 120 c_iff currently only supports FORM IFFs. But the other types of IFFs are very rare.
 121 If you need them, tell me.
 122
 123 <a name="CopLic"></a>
 124 <h2>
 125 Copyright and License
 126 </h2>
 127 c_iff is Copyright (C) 2000, 2001 Joerg Dietrich
 128
 129 <pre>
 130 This is the AROS-version of c_iff.
 131 It is distributed under the AROS Public License.
 132 But I reserve the right to distribute
 133 my own version under other licenses.
 134 </pre>
 135
 136 <a name="Author"></a>
 137 <h2>
 138 Author
 139 </h2>
 140 c_iff is written by me, J&ouml;rg Dietrich .
 141 You can reach me at <a href="mailto:Dietrich_Joerg@t-online.de">Dietrich_Joerg@t-online.de</a>.
 142
 143 <a name="VerHis"></a>
 144 <h2>
 145 Version History
 146 </h2>
 147 06-Nov-2000 : initial release
 148 <br>
 149 11-Nov-2001 : bug-fixes, support for non 32-bit architectures
 150
 151 <p>
 152 <center>
 153 <small>
 154 Copyright &copy; 2000, 2001 <a href="mailto:Dietrich_Joerg@t-online.de">J&ouml;rg Dietrich</a>
 155 <br>
 156 Last change: 11-Nov-2001
 157 </small>
 158 </center>
 159 </body>
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