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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: punkyclown on September 27, 2009, 02:34:20 AM

Title: Two Datatypes folders
Post by: punkyclown on September 27, 2009, 02:34:20 AM

Can someone explain to me why I have two Datatypes folders, one in the Devs folder and one in the Classes folder and how they work?  Is one over riding the other?  is one from
WorkBench 3.0 and one from WorkBench 3.1?

Thanks

Title: Re: Two Datatypes folders
Post by: SamuraiCrow on September 27, 2009, 02:51:12 AM

One detects the filetype, the other actually decodes the file into the native data format used by the operating system.  Both are required for a datatype to work correctly.

Title: Re: Two Datatypes folders
Post by: chris on September 27, 2009, 05:39:13 PM

SYS:Devs/DataTypes contains the descriptors (these are little IFF files which describe the file format and tell the system which DataTypes decoder to use.

The decoder libraries themselves are stored in SYS:Classes/DataTypes

For a single DataType decoder library, you may need any number of descriptors.  Some base class ones (eg. binary.datatype) don't need any, others may have more than one (if they can decode a few formats) - however usually it is one descriptor per decoder (.datatype file)