Dat-O-Matic Dat File Parser

Dat-O-Matic dat file parsing system which I created for a very special project that I am working on; I figured it would save some of the developers out there several hours of leg work creating their own. Currently it parses UTF/Text dat files found on http://datomatic.no-intro.org/ I plan on adding functionality of allowing it to parse XML/Text type DAT files at some point in time. Without further delay here is how you use this bad boy.

Include a reference

using DatProcessor;

Initialize the code

var myMethod = new DatFileProcessor();

var myGames = myMethod.ProcessFile(@"c:\path\to\my\datfile.dat");

This will read your DAT file into an object type that will be held much like a list type, and here is a quick and dirty way to loop through all of the data that can be found from that DAT file.

Looping through games

foreach (var myGame in myGames)

{

Console.WriteLine(myGame.Index);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.Name);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.RomCrc);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.RomMd5);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.RomName);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.RomSha);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.RomSize);

Console.WriteLine(myGame.Serial);

}

Overview - The Layout of a DAT

game (

name "Circus Attractions (Europe) (Compilation - Milestones)"

description "Circus Attractions (Europe) (Compilation - Milestones)"

rom ( name "Circus Attractions (Europe) (Compilation - Milestones).ipf" size 928295 crc 83BA36E2 md5 1B54BFAA5325EC1D654BF035299B0CCF sha1 516672412F3532F823088FD71A669D30E226D5CA )

)

Index - Stores the line number within the file where the game has been located

Name - Stores the proper name of the game found in line #2 above

RomCrc - Stores the CRC value of the rom found in line #3

RomSha - Stores the SHA1 value of the rom found in line #3

RomMd5 - Stores the MD5 value of the rom found in line #3

RomName - Stores the literal name of the rom found in line #3

RomSize - Stores the size of the current rom found in line #3

RomSerial - When applicable this will store the value of a games serial (typically found in line #3/#4)

Anyways ladies and gents, I just wanted to spread my works for any of our brilliant software developers out there who need a quick and simple way of parsing DAT files; I will add a searching algorithm in later as well. Thanks everyone!