NAME

textpack - Pack and unpack Flex files containing text

SYNOPSIS

textpack -c FLEXFILE [TEXTFILE]

textpack -x FLEXFILE [TEXTFILE]

DESCRIPTION

Text Flex files are used for the storage of strings by the games Exult supports. While expack(1) can operate on such files, using textpack to pack and unpack them is more comfortable.

The first parameter determines the mode of operation, -c stands for creation, -x for extraction.

Creation

TEXTFILE (or stdin if it is missing) is read and must conform to the file format (see below). FLEXFILE will be created containing the strings from this input.

Extraction

The strings contained in FLEXFILE are extracted and written to TEXTFILE (if given, stdout otherwise) in the file format documented below.

Empty lines, and lines starting with a pound sign (#) are ignored. Other lines must begin with a number, followed by a colon (:). The number is the index of the string and may be given either in decimal, in octal prefixed with 0; or in hexadecimal prefixed with 0x. Anything following the colon belongs to the string and gets stored in the Flex verbatim. Lines are limited in length to 1024 characters.

EXAMPLES

textpack -x text.flx: Writes all the strings contained in text.flx to stdout in the format discussed above.
textpack -c text.flx strings.list: Reads strings.list and puts its contents into the Flex file text.flx

Example text file

# An example
0:the zeroth string
# strings may be empty
1:
# holes are allowed, strings 2 to 16 will be empty
17:string seventeen
# 13 hexadecimal == 19 decimal, 24 octal == 20 decimal
0x13:nineteen
024:twenty
# numbers need not go up
18:eighteen
# this will overwrite the definition from above
19:overwritten

AUTHOR

This manpage was written by Robert Bihlmeyer. It may be freely redistributed and modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or higher.