pack_fopen(3)                   Allegro manual                   pack_fopen(3)



NAME
       pack_fopen - Opens a file according to mode. Allegro game programming
       library.

SYNOPSIS
       #include <allegro.h>


       PACKFILE *pack_fopen(const char *filename, const char *mode);

DESCRIPTION
       Opens a file according to mode, which may contain any of the flags:

       `r' - open file for reading.

       `w' - open file for writing, overwriting any existing data.

       `p' - open file in packed mode. Data will be compressed as it is
       written to the file, and automatically uncompressed during read
       operations. Files created in this mode will produce garbage if they are
       read without this flag being set.

       `!' - open file for writing in normal, unpacked mode, but add the value
       F_NOPACK_MAGIC to the start of the file, so that it can later be opened
       in packed mode and Allegro will automatically detect that the data does
       not need to be decompressed.

       Instead of these flags, one of the constants F_READ, F_WRITE,
       F_READ_PACKED, F_WRITE_PACKED or F_WRITE_NOPACK may be used as the mode
       parameter.

       The packfile functions also understand several "magic" filenames that
       are used for special purposes. These are:

       `#' - read data that has been appended to your executable file with the
       exedat utility, as if it was a regular independent disk file.

       `filename.dat#object_name' - open a specific object from a datafile,
       and read from it as if it was a regular file. You can treat nested
       datafiles exactly like a normal directory structure, for example you
       could open `filename.dat#graphics/level1/mapdata'.

       `#object_name' - combination of the above, reading an object from a
       datafile that has been appended onto your executable.

       With these special filenames, the contents of a datafile object or
       appended file can be read in an identical way to a normal disk file, so
       any of the file access functions in Allegro (eg. load_pcx() and
       set_config_file()) can be used to read from them. Note that you can't
       write to these special files, though: the fake file is read only. Also,
       you must save your datafile uncompressed or with per-object compression
       if you are planning on loading individual objects from it (otherwise
       there will be an excessive amount of seeking when it is read).

       Finally, be aware that the special Allegro object types aren't the same
       format as the files you import the data from. When you import data like
       bitmaps or samples into the grabber, they are converted into a special
       Allegro-specific format, but the `#' marker file syntax reads the
       objects as raw binary chunks. This means that if, for example, you want
       to use load_pcx() to read an image from a datafile, you should import
       it as a binary block rather than as a BITMAP object.

       Example:

          PACKFILE *input_file;

          input_file = pack_fopen("scores.dat", "rp");
          if (!input_file)
             abort_on_error("Couldn't read `scores.dat'!");

RETURN VALUE
       On success, pack_fopen() returns a pointer to a PACKFILE structure, and
       on error it returns NULL and stores an error code in `errno'. An
       attempt to read a normal file in packed mode will cause `errno' to be
       set to EDOM.


SEE ALSO
       pack_fclose(3), pack_fopen_chunk(3), packfile_password(3),
       pack_fread(3), pack_getc(3), file_select_ex(3), pack_fopen_vtable(3),
       expackf(3)



Allegro                          version 4.2.3                   pack_fopen(3)
