rhdndat 2.8.1

www.romhacking.net update checker

rhdndat finds rhdndat.ver files to check for romhacking.net updates

A version file is named rhdndat.ver and has a version number line followed by a romhacking.net url line, repeated. These correspond to each hack or translation. To check for needed updates to version file, if any patch version in the file does not match the version on the romhacking.net patch page, it presents a warning.

rhdndat-rn renames files and patches to new .DAT [1] [2] rom names if it can find the rom checksum in those .DAT files and memorizes the checksum of the ‘original rom’ as a extended attribute user.rhdndat.rom_sha1 to speed up renaming in subsequent executions (in unix, not windows).

To find the checksum of the original file for hardpatched roms, rhdndat-rn can support a custom convention for ‘revert patches’. Revert patches are a patch that you apply to a hardpatched file to get the original. These have the same name as the file and extension ‘.rxdelta’ and are done with xdelta3. I keep them for patch updates for cd images (since delta chd support is rare).

rhdndat-rn will read a xml dat file or every dat file from a directory given, and ask for renaming for every match where the rom filename is not equal to the dat name proposed. It will skip the question if all the names proposed already exist in the rom directory, and not allow a rename to a existing file in the rom directory.

Besides bare rom files, files affected by renames are compressed wii/gamecube .rvz files, .cue/.toc/.gdi (treated especially to not ask for every track), the softpatch types .ips, .bps, .ups, including the new retroarch multiple softpatch convention (a number after the softpatch extension), .rxdelta, .pal NES color palettes, and sbi subchannel data files.

No-intro recently changed its mind and all roms checksums in its dats no longer skip headers (regardless if they carry a headered and unheadered dat). To softpatch mismatching headers hacks, you can track down the right rom, hardpatch it, and create a softpatch from the current no-intro rom to the older patched rom. For sfc and pce ips hacks that target a headered rom I recommend ipsbehead³ to change the patch to target the no-header rom if possible.

When you update a no-intro set, all romhacks roms should not be also updated because otherwise the hacks stop working and yet users are encouraged go keep the same directory platforms roms in the same base directory, including hacks (for for example, have a single canonical retroarch playlist) which makes rhdndat-rn scans complain about the massive mismatching roms from older sets to the new set. I dont really encourage keeping a single combined hacks and nointro same directory set, but I do have a solution to make rhdndat-rn stop complaining: create a .rxdelta patch from each affected rom, to the new nointro rom, which allows you to update names for translations at least, if you keep the original name for those.

Requires xdelta3 (to process rxdelta) and dolphin-tool (to operate on rvz files) on path or the same directory.

To check for updates if you have the version files:

rhdndat romdir

check if there are any updates

To rename files if you have the dat files:

rhdndat-rn [--force] [--ext a78 --ext nes ...] romdir xmlpath

the rom extensions should be all file extensions on the files you want to rename (see below for default)

rhdndat [OPTIONS] ROMDIR

ROMDIR:

Directory to search for versions to check. [required]

--show

Show link to each checked directory.

--install-completion

Install completion for the current shell.

--show-completion

Show completion for the current shell, to copy it or customize the installation.

--help

Show this message and exit.

rhdndat-rn [OPTIONS] ROMDIR XMLPATH

ROMDIR:

Directory to search for roms to rename. [required]

XMLPATH:

Xml dat file or directory to search for xml dat files to use as source of new names. [required]

--skip DIRECTORY

Directory to skip, can be repeated.

--ext TEXT

ROM extensions to find names of, can be repeated. Note that you can ommit this argument to get the predefined list. [default: a78, hdi, fdi, ngc, ws, wsc, pce, gb, gba, gbc, n64, v64, z64, 3ds, nds, nes, lnx, fds, sfc, smc, bs, nsp, 32x, gg, sms, md, iso, dim, adf, ipf, dsi, wad, cue, gdi, toc, rvz]

--force

Force a recalculation and store of checksum (on windows the calculation always happens).

--no-rename

Check and store checksums only.

--verbose

Print more information about skipped roms.

--install-completion

Install completion for the current shell.

--show-completion

Show completion for the current shell, to copy it or customize the installation.

--help

Show this message and exit.

[1]

scroll down and click ‘prepare’ to get a collection of cartidge rom .DAT files.

[2]

download cd/dvd roms .DAT files here.

Install

rhdndat requires python 3.8 or later.

rhdndat may fail to execute in linux if the dir ~/.local/bin to is not in the $PATH.

In windows, you’ll want to check the option to “Add Python to PATH” when installing python.

The project can be installed with pip but you’ll have to provide your own xdelta3 and dolphin-tool executables in the path (or current dir) for supporting rvz and rxdelta.

In linux just installing xdelta3 from the repositories is enough, in windows, placing a executable for xdelta3 named xdelta3.exe in the python install Scripts directory if you installed with the path option selected is enough.

In linux you’ll have to build dolphin-tool (it’s not built by dolphin-emu packages) and place it in ~/.local/bin, and in windows you can copy it from the dolphin install directory, rename it to dolphin-tool.exe and place it in the python install Scripts directory.

Latest release	pip install --force-reinstall rhdndat
Current code	pip install --force-reinstall https://github.com/i30817/rhdndat/archive/master.zip

Links

Alcaro for helpful comments and for flips	https://github.com/Alcaro/Flips
romhacking.net for being awesome	http://www.romhacking.net/
Turn sfc and pce ips header patches to no-header patches	https://github.com/heuripedes/ipsbehead
Remember to rename to xdelta3 and place in path	https://github.com/jmacd/xdelta-gpl/releases
Remember to rename to dolphin-tool and place in path, linux requires build	https://dolphin-emu.org/download/

The source for this project is available here.