> There are many types of related info about a game. Cover scans, game
music,
> tips etc. It's impractical to store all of that in the .msx file, both
> because of the size and because it's hard to keep it up-to-date. Storing
URLs
> solves the size problem, but it doesn't solve the up-to-date problem
(broken
> URLs are everywhere). So we decided to move all of the related info to the
> web and use a unique ID to retrieve a list of URLs from a database.
But comments shouldn't belong in the database then.
And you can create an auto-update system (ofcourse with confirmation), which
automatically unzips, updates the inf, and zips the .msx-file.
> It's useful to have a short version without special characters. For
example,
> on 8.3 filesystems the short ID can be used to generate filenames for save
> games. And when doing a database query through CGI, there can be no
> problems with special characters in the URL.
You can ofcourse limit the usable characters to ASCII upper/lowercase
characters, numbers, dash, tilde, and slash. But a full name like "Penguin
Adventure" seems a lot more logical to me than "penadv", because in case of
the latter a list has to be created (and updated!) with all short aliases
for the game name. And you will have to look up the 'short alias' everytime
you create an inf. It's a bother.
> > By the way,
> > CRC's are also a good ID (they should be 32-bit though, with 16-bit
CRC's
> > there is too much chance two games have the same CRC).
>
> CRCs are specific to an image, not to a game. Two variants of the same
game
> will have different CRCs.
So? Nothing wrong with that. The same game but in different versions (i.e.
jap/eng) shouldn't be treated the same. And the database can produce links
to screenshots of the Japanese version if that one is used. And if two
versions are almost equally the same then you can always cross-link to the
same data (that is, if the database is set up correctly).
> And what if the image in a previous package turns
> out to be broken? The correct image will have a different CRC.
Then the incorrect CRC can result in a "this rom is broken" message
generated by the server.
> > > I made a search on the web and couldn't find the RFC.
> > > If it is not available anywhere, we should make our own
> > > language codes.
> >
> > It's there, definately. Look in the references of the assigned numbers.
> > Come to think of it, I bet it's an ISO or IEEE standard, and not an RFC.
>
> I reported the number of the ISO standard this morning. It would be more
> efficient if you read all your email before you reply...
Yes, I read it, but I already sent the mail. It is a lot to read in one
go... Is it that bothersome? I was only trying to help... Well, not
appreciated, apparently.
~Grauw
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