PSIONICS FILE - RESOURCE.FMT ============================ Format of Resource files Last modified 1994-03-28 ======================== Resource files are uses to hold information for a program which does not need to be held in the program itself. Two reasons for doing this are: - the contents of the resource file do not take up process memory when not being used; - the resource file can be changed on a per-language basis without changing the rest of the program. A resource file may be standard or compressed. This description only applies to standard files. The format of a standard file is: Offset 0 (word): offset of index table Offset 2 (word): length in bytes of index table The index table is an array of words, giving the offsets of each resource in order. By convention resources are numbered from 1 upwards. If the table holds T entries, there are T-1 resources (1 to T-1); entry N is the offset of the end of resource N-1 as well as the offset of resource N, and entry T is the offset of resource T-1, and so should equal offset 0 of the file. For example, if a resource file contains two resources of length A and B respectively, the file contains: Offset 0 (word) : A+B+4 Offset 2 (word) : 6 Offset 4 to A+3 : value of resource 1 Offset A+4 to A+B+3: value of resource 2 Offset A+B+4 (word): 4 Offset A+B+6 (word): A+4 Offset A+B+8 (word): A+B+4