World Of Spectrum dat file to hyperlist

[supertrasgu]

Hello everybody,

I noticed the hyperlist for Sinclair ZX Spectrum is empty . I asked Martijn from worldofspectrum.org for the data to build a hyperlist and he directed me to this file they maintain and publish :

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/rainbow-wos.zip

I intend to develop a simple command-line program that generates a hyperlist from such file. Before I start, I would like to know if somebody has done something similar and is willing to share his code, or want to develop this themselves, or could help me in some way. I'm not particularly interested in doing it, I just want a hyperlist for Spectrum.

Thanks,

Ivan

[brolly]

That work has already been done and it's not easy because there are a lot of dupes on that listing you got from WOS, and several games using different names that need to be filtered, then you have the rom naming that doesn't match the one we use. There's just no way you can automate it and get an accurate db, this needs to be done manually.

The good new is that this has already been done and there's a Spectrum db done just not on Hyperlist yet (huge thanks to billy). I intend to upload it soon, when I think I can call it final. There's still some stuff that we find and needs correction every now and then which is normal considering this is a db with several thousand games.

We can use help on doing the videos though

[supertrasgu]

Oh, too late, I have already done something:

#! /bin/awk -f

# wos2hyperlist.awk by Ivan Martinez, 2012
# Generates a hyperlist from a <http://www.worldofspectrum.org/rainbow-wos.zip> file

function remove_quotes(string)
{
gsub(/"/, "", string)
return string
}
function remove_extension(file_name)
{
gsub(/\..*/, "", file_name)
return file_name
}
function relevant_genre(genre)
{
return match(genre, /Arcade/)
}
BEGIN {OFS = "\n"
FS = "\t"
print "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>"
print "<menu>"
print "\t<header>"
print "\t\t<listname>Sinclair ZX Spectrum</listname>"
print "\t\t<lastlistupdate>30/04/2012</lastlistupdate>"
print "\t\t<listversion>1.0</listversion>"
print "\t\t<exporterversion>wos2hyperlist.awk by Ivan Martinez, data from worldofspectrum.org</exporterversion>"
print "\t</header>"}
{FS = "\t"
genre = remove_quotes($6)
if (relevant_genre(genre))
{
	print "\t<game name=\"" remove_extension(remove_quotes($14)) "\" index=\"\" image=\"\">"
	print "\t\t<description>" remove_quotes($1) "</description>"
	print "\t\t<cloneof>" "</cloneof>"
	print "\t\t<crc>"  "</crc>"
	print "\t\t<manufacturer>" remove_quotes($2) "</manufacturer>"
	print "\t\t<year>" $5 "</year>"
	print "\t\t<genre>" genre "</genre>"
	print "\t\t<rating></rating>"
	print "\t\t<enabled>Yes</enabled>"
	print "\t</game>"
}
}
END {print "</menu>"}

I noticed it produces duplicated entries because the source file has an entry for every known extension of each application. Since they are alphabetically ordered, a check to see if the current one is equal to the last one would solve the problem, I think.

Shouldn't you use WOS' naming?. They are the database of Spectrum applications and the easiest way to get them, AFAIK.

Anyway, thanks for taking care of this, I'm looking forward to get your hyperlist.

[brolly]

Not using using a consistent naming schema was one of the major issues of the first official dbs, it makes things look messy and unprofessional. From now on everything will use the same standard naming except when not possible like MAME for example. WOS doesn't even have a real naming schema, so it would make no sense to use their rom names. Besides HS2 multi-disk selection will be totally based on the naming we use so using any other naming schema would render that function useless.

Anyway the names of your roms don't really matter, you can rename everything into the proper name in a matter of minutes using cmp

[stovies]

brolly

Did your spectrum.xml ever get released?

[zxspecticle]

I'd be interested in helping out with videos for this system. The ZX Spectrum was the first computer I ever owned way back in 1982 so naturally I have something of a soft spot for it. Hyperspin users outside of Europe may or may not be aware that "Rare" of Goldeneye (and many others) fame made a name for themselves on the ZX Spectrum under the name "Ultimate Play The Game" where they released classics such as Jetpac, Ppsst, Cookie, Transam, Lunar Jetman, Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Underwurld and the groundbreaking Knightlore. There is quite a lot of shovel ware on the ZX Spectrum but also some hidden gems that I'm sure many people would enjoy the experience of playing. Perhaps a database based on the WOS top 100 Spectrum games would be of benefit?