NAME

       create_datafile_index - Creates an index for a datafile. Allegro game programming library.

SYNOPSIS

       #include <allegro.h>

       DATAFILE_INDEX *create_datafile_index(const char *filename);

DESCRIPTION

       Creates  an  index  for  a datafile, to speed up loading single objects out of it. This is
       mostly useful for big datafiles, which you don't want to load as a whole. The  index  will
       store the offset of all objects inside the datafile, and then you can load it quickly with
       "load_datafile_object_indexed" later.  Use destroy_datafile_index to free the memory  used
       by it again.

       Note:  If the datafile uses global compression, there is no performance gain from using an
       index, because seeking to the offset still requires to uncompress the whole datafile up to
       that offset.  Example:

          DATAFILE_INDEX *index = create_datafile_index("huge.dat");
          DATAFILE *object = load_datafile_object_indexed(index, 1234);
          ...
          unload_datafile_object(object);
          destroy_datafile_index(index);

RETURN VALUE

       A pointer value which you can pass to load_datafile_object_indexed.

SEE ALSO

       destroy_datafile_index(3alleg4), load_datafile_object_indexed(3alleg4)