plucky (3) create_datafile_index.3alleg4.gz

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)