Reply-To: <arfa AT clara DOT net>
From: "Arthur" <arfa AT clara DOT net>
To: "DJGPP Mailing List" <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: RE: Retrieving BMP from datafile?
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 11:09:46 +0100
Message-ID: <000101bdd4c7$7affb240$c64b08c3@arthur>
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> > I've almost finished a Othello clone, with the help of the allegro
> > library, and want to place all the graphics into a dat file before
> > releasing it for testing among friends and family.
> >
> > I have found out to make the dat file with the grabber program.
> > but I can't figure out how to get the BMP files out of the dat file
> > again.
> >
> > I have a othello.h header file (created with the grabber).
> > and a BMP file called 'backgr' (inside the dat file).
> > and finally a palette called 'othello' (also inside the dat file).
> >
> > Could anyone please help me with a small example on how to retrieve the
> > BMP drawing from the dat file??
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> > Einar.
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Remove [EINAR] from e-mail address when replying
>
> Try looking allegro examples, as I am sure they have an example of it
> some where.

Nothing really explanatory.

First build your datafile.

There's a program in the tools directory called dat.exe, and it had an option to
export a .h file (using the -h switch). When you've created a header file for your
datafile, #include that into your code (the datafile contains a list of the items in
the datafile).

Then create a pointer to a DATAFILE structure in your code:

DATAFILE *file;

then load in your datafile:

file = load_datafile("data.dat");

Now to extract a BITMAP:

BITMAP *image;
image = (BITMAP *) file[MY_IMAGE_FILE].dat;

MY_IMAGE_FILE is whatever you called the image in the datafile (handily defined in
that header file you created). And the (BITMAP *) is obviously a cast.

As far as I can tell, you don't need to destroy a BITMAP after use, just the
datafile.

HTH

James Arthur
jaa AT arfa DOT clara DOT net
ICQ#15054819