README

PAKLIB -- a C library for lovers of PAK files :-)

PAKLIB is only two files, pak.h and pak.c. Just copy them
to your project and make use of the functions that provide
methods to easily handle .pak files.

Files used:
----------- stdio.h
	    stdlib.h
	    string.h

Methods provided:
-----------------   createPak - Creates a new pakfile
		    extractPak - Extracts a file from within a pak
		    insertPak - Vice versa, inserts a file in a pak
		    openPak - Opens a pakfile for operation
		    closePak - Vice versa, closes the pak
		    checkPak - Does some checking for corrupted pak
		    readFile - Reads a generic file into a buffer of char*
		    inPak - Checks if a file exists in a pak
		    loadDirSection - loads the filetree of a pak
		    printDirTree - helper function, prints out the filetree

Generic usage:
--------------

Usually the developer wants to create a new pak and then stuff all his files
into it. The finished main program then opens the pakfile and read all stuff
in it. 
Creating a pak is easy: 
 createPak("mypak.pak");

This will create an empty new pak called "mypak.pak".

Now before any action can be taken with the pak, you must open it and
get a handle to it:

pakfile *mypak = openPak("mypak.pak");

Using this handle *mypak you can execute all the other functions:

Inserting:
	    insertPak("/home/myname/bitmap.bmp", "gfx/bitmaps/bitmap.bmp", mypak);

Extracting:
	    extractPak("gfx/bitmaps/bitmap.bmp", "/home/myname/bitmap.bmp", mypak);

Checking:
	    checkPak(mypak);


If you want to know if there is a specific file within the pak:

dirsection *myfile = inPak("gfx/bitmaps/bitmap.bmp", mypak);

This will either return a pointer to the directory entry of the file
or NULL if the file is not in the pak.
You can access the information this way:
myfile->filename    ==   something like "gfx/bitmaps/bitmap.bmp"
myfile->file_position == address of the binary file data within the pakfile
myfile->file_length == length of the file in bytes


Explanation of the pakfile struct:
----------------------------------
*handle   ==   is a pointer to the filehandle (NULL if the file is not open)
header    ==   gives access to the header of the pakfile
  |
  |
   ->  head  ==  is always "PACK"
       dir_offset  == address of the dirsection
       dir_length  == length of the dirsection in bytes


The source is GPL, that means you are free to use and redistribute / change.
If you want to use the code in a commercial project, please contact me:
 dominik.jall@gmail.com
It would be nice if you mentioned me in the credits :-)

If you have any suggestions on how to further improve the code and / or
add new features to it, feel free to mail me.

Dominik Jall
09.03.2003