Index

In an attempt to produce a simple but easily extendable file format, which could be read and rewritten by a program that doesn't know what's in it, I designed the S2Data format. Vaguely similar in purpose to IFF and RIFF, S2Data provides a way to have different types of data in one file, in a chunk-based tree structure with chunks containing chunks.

The files in the ZIP are:

• Specs.S2A: Full specifications for the S2Data format (in an S2Data format file; if you can't use either of the readers, load it in a hex editor and manually grab the appropriate bytes (starting 'S2Data format definition' and ending 'None are defined as yet.') into a text file; there's also another copy of the S2ARC.CMD program to demonstrate how two files are archived together)
• TST.S2D: A hand-built S2Data file with non-standard chunk IDs (WARNING: This file does not have the CRCs filled in - but neither of the programs check CRCs (although this could fairly easily be added) so it's not a problem yet)
• S2ARC.CMD: The only program so far to make S2Data files, S2Arc builds an archive from one or more files (text or binary), putting them in FIlE chunks (= 'file' with letters 1, 2, 4 capital; see specs for explanation), which contain NAME and DATA chunks. S2Arc is command-line based; for usage information run it with a -H or -? parameter.
• S2D.EXE: VX-REXX program to show an S2D file with the subchunks arrangement shown as a tree structure. Pass it the name of an S2Data file as a parameter to show the top-level chunks in the file. Click on the plus sign to show subchunks for that file; double-click any chunk (whether it contains subchunks or not) to show its contents.

  File: S2DATA.ZIP
  Requires: REXX, VROBJ (for S2D.EXE), possibly OS/2 for S2ARC.CMD (some features may be OS/2 specific but may work on other platforms).
  Installation: None.
  Operation: See specific entries above.
  De-installation: Delete.
  Distribution: Open Source (for the VX-REXX source of S2D.EXE, drop me an email at talldad@kepl.com.au.