JSort/RomSort Readme
10 September, 2000
the Webulator

News : 13 September Unix makefile works! GOOOOOOOOOOOAL! heh.  Atari
7800 headers skipped (but only it it's .a78 - .bin files are not)

*Sort will move the files to a dir with the same name as the datfile
(without the extension).  So if your datfile is 'a2600.dat' you type
'romsort a2600' and all recognised files are renamed, and moved into
a dir called 'a2600'.  Very simple!  Subdirs ('bad' etc) coming soon

JSort and RomSort are Platform-independent open-source file renamers
which use plain-text data files.  Porting should involve little more
than making a makefile, although some modules might need to have the
types changed with a search-and-replace at this time. This should be
phased out shortly so they can be compiled on a Kodak camera if that
is where you have all of your jpegs / roms...   The files which *do*
need re-written for each OS are in the 'arch' subdir.  These include
listing files and creating directories, and path-separator issues.


*** gory details ***

Unix/Linux:
    make depends
Then choose one
    make romsort
    make jsort
You will have to make clean before making the other one, since the
headers redefine some structures for rom/j

*Sort can rename files based on a data file.  For RomSort, this is a .dat file with a CRC and a filename on each line or a RomCenter data file.  For JSort, this is a JSheriff .crc with lots of stuff on each line.

To rename roms using the 2600.dat file, type
	'romsort 2600'
To rename jpgs using the apits.crc file, type
	'jsort apits'

Note that Unix is case-sensitive.

RomSort will currently recognise all headerless files (everything RomDoctor / RomCenter recognises) as well as .nes, Snes .smc .swc
.fig, Lynx .lyx .lnx, and Genesis .smd .bin.   Actually, anything
but N64 should work fine.  All of these are format-independant so
the same file in different formats will be recognised.  Most file
headers are skipped.


*** limitations ***

*Sort will not make a list of things you miss.  Most of this code
has already been written for other projects, and will be included
for the first public release.

Not all of the dat files have been made but you can get RomCenter
datfiles at www.romcenter.com

SNES interleaved formats will not be recognised yet.

RomCenter does not convert SMD to BIN when making a datfile so if
you have a smd file where the datfile has a bin neither RomCenter
nor RomSort will recognise it.


*** what's next and other boring things ***

If you can help with porting, please let me know.  I am working on
a makefile for GNU make for Unix, Linux, and any compiler with GNU
make like DJGPP.  Any portability problems should be fixed when it
is finished.  After that I plan to make a nice Win9x/NT/2k version which might even run in X-Windows (slowly) under Wine.  That would
be really nice.

I need help making a good, portable makefile, and also with the
Mac/BeOS port.  Currently only a command-line version is available
but when I start the Windows port it will be easier to make the Mac
port.  BeOS should be considered a priority.

I wrote RomSort in a day, JSort in an evening,  and took another day
to test/debug and make it more portable, so if there are bugs that's
why.  Although the Good* tools are Good, and RomDoctor is...  so big
and bloated, I decided to write a portable tool for my Linux HD, and
for anyone to port to Mac or BeOS or CE or whatever.  This is not to
be construed as a 'dis' of either Cowering or Flash, because RomSort
and JSort are intended to be portable and open source, and they will
not 'compete' on the same OS.

JSort and RomSort are built on the same source tree, with mostly the
same options and results.  Most differences are done using compiler
flags instead of different source modules.

the Webulator
kinox.org/eDen/
balzano50@hotmail.com
webulator@beer.com
