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1

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 23 October 2024, 03:14 »

Thanks, I figured the script could run on the existing release but I understand now.

2

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 22 October 2024, 18:27 »

Thanks, Roman.  I'm still getting the same parsing error as before though, and with execute perms set properly.  How are you launching the clrmame and script via wine in your environment?

3

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 22 October 2024, 00:30 »

Thanks, Roman.  I know you put a lot of thought and work into this.  So should I wait for the change to settings.xml for clrmame to see the script before actually testing?  Also, are you planning to internalize the script to the clrmame binary itself once testing is completed, so the extra setup and procedure isn't needed?  I just hope this is going to be less complicated than writing a quick bash script to run mame -listsoftware and then launch clrmame upon its completion.

4

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 18 October 2024, 20:27 »

No worries, whenever you have time. 

5

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 17 October 2024, 20:35 »

Hey Roman, your wrapper script idea seems promising and innovative and I hope you've had time for further thoughts or developments. I'd like to start testing your new tool more exhaustively and waiting to use the cleaner and less manually-intensive binary with flag option, so I'm sure anything you can do about this issue would help.

Of course, opening the source would probably invite more ideas if the zip library limitation can be worked out, I know that's in your plans but.. just sayin'.

Thanks!

6

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 03 October 2024, 20:55 »

Thanks for the explanation, Roman.  Interesting issue, and yeah I see the four WaitForSingleObject return values listed on the Microsoft site as well. I blame Windows

I'll stay tuned for more.  Should you need anything else in the meantime, I'm happy to help.

7

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 03 October 2024, 18:00 »

and it works when you don't specify a parameter like -listxml

This is weird since it automatically adds "-listxml" when no parameter is given. So no matter if you specify -listxml in the XML/EXE box or not, it will always run mame -listxml.

Actually, I'm also getting that same error even when not specifying -listxml.  I ran your debug version, but this time only specifying the mame binary with no flags.  Result is posted here since the spam filter keeps catching this post with the log inline.

Also, here is my mame folder.  I'm using 0.270 with Mint 22 (Cinnamon DE), which is downstream from Ubuntu.  By the way you could just run Linux Mint 22 off a bootable drive like a USB stick, you can get the image here.

8

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 02 October 2024, 20:38 »

Actually when I configure clrmame's XML / EXE box as follows I get the same sha ring vio lation error:

Code: [Select]

Z:\home\testing\Emulation\Emulators\MAME\mame -listxml

9

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 02 October 2024, 20:12 »

Thanks, but it didn't work.  I removed the 0-byte length file (actually, the entire exports subdir) before running.  By the way, I had to space out "sha ring" and "vio lation" on the log below, otherwise it gets caught by your spam filter.

Code: [Select]

2024-10-02 16:06:19 info creating xml export
2024-10-02 16:06:19 error running .\mame -listsoftware failed due to remove: Sha ring vio lation.: "Z:\home\testing\Desktop\cm\exports\661de8ad-listsoftware.xml"
2024-10-02 16:06:19 info loading: Z:\home\testing\Desktop\cm\exports\661de8ad-listsoftware.xml
2024-10-02 16:06:19 error can't parse Z:\home\testing\Desktop\cm\exports\661de8ad-listsoftware.xml
2024-10-02 16:06:19 info Done, overall time: 0 seconds
2024-10-02 16:06:19 error errors occured, please check log

10

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 02 October 2024, 18:33 »

The file does exist, and it is indeed 0-bytes.  I confirmed that the filename prefix matches crc32 output for the mame binary, not that I had any reason to doubt.

Also, I observed some anomalies when running mame with flags from local vs. remote.  Some tests from shell to illustrate:

Code: [Select]

$ /home/testing/Emulation/Emulators/MAME/mame -listsoftware
No software lists found for this system

$ /home/testing/Emulation/Emulators/MAME/mame -listxml
(works - produces expected output)

$ cd /home/testing/Emulation/Emulators/MAME
$ ./mame -listsoftware
(works  - produces expected output)

$ cd /home/testing/Emulation/Emulators/MAME
$ ./mame -listxml
(works  - produces expected output)
So perhaps we need to define (set/export) the mame path first?

And finally to your Linux comment - bah not a perms issue, at least not this time, oh and hey look at that! POSIX compliance called, it wants its dignity back

11

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 02 October 2024, 16:11 »

https://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/binaries/clrmame_006_013_2.zip

for the linux guys....

Thanks, Roman.  However I'm now getting:

Code: [Select]

2024-10-02 12:10:05 info creating xml export
2024-10-02 12:10:05 error can't run: Z:\home\testing\Emulation\Emulators\MAME\mame -listsoftware
2024-10-02 12:10:05 info loading: Z:\home\testing\Desktop\cm\exports\661de8ad-listsoftware.xml
2024-10-02 12:10:05 error can't parse Z:\home\testing\Desktop\cm\exports\661de8ad-listsoftware.xml
2024-10-02 12:10:05 info Done, overall time: 0 seconds
2024-10-02 12:10:05 error errors occured, please check log


12

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 02 October 2024, 00:38 »

Does adding the '.exe' to the command help?

Z:\home\testing\Emulation\Emulators\MAME\mame.exe -listsoftware

Thanks, but Linux has no concept of an executable extension; even though the extension would be accepted if it were manually named that way, it is not a requirement, so for example my mame binary is just "mame".

13

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 01 October 2024, 20:57 »

- when loading a -listsoftware data basis (either exe import or standalone dat), additional softwarelists can be added either by:

prio #1 - you used an exe with -listsoftware command, then it looks up the exe path for a hash folder

Thanks for this!  I tried your prio #1 method, however I'm getting the following (again running in linux under Wine):

Code: [Select]

2024-10-01 13:57:16 info loading: Z:\home\testing\Emulation\Emulators\MAME\mame -listsoftware
2024-10-01 13:57:16 error can't parse Z:\home\testing\Emulation\Emulators\MAME\mame -listsoftware
2024-10-01 13:57:16 info Done, overall time: 0 seconds
2024-10-01 13:57:16 error errors occured, please check log
Note that it runs fine without the -listsoftware flag, so it seems to have a problem with the flag.

Your "All files" option does work fine though.

14

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 30 September 2024, 20:32 »

The ones from the hash folder are simply added internally, so they are handled as the ones which are already in the listsoftware output. See screenshot above in this thread….the 3do_m2 one at the top is an added one…
Lemme sleep over it before I post a nighly build…maybe I have an idea for John‘s scenario, too

Yup, and all 11 sets I mentioned are there in the log, your process seems like it works perfectly.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

15

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 30 September 2024, 19:32 »

hmm...I've compared coleco.xml from 269 against 270 and there are only 3 changed descriptions. Surely clrmame will show the updated description if the file would be missing...but of course nothing really changes regarding the content of the files....

Wow, looks like I should have checked this more carefully myself.  It seems that in each of those cases, none of the hash values actually changed, only immaterial data like descriptions, and so it makes sense that those sets wouldn't have appeared.  I was especially confounded due to the supracan set being on the list since I was sure there were new supracan software items for 0.270, but it seems there weren't after all.  Sorry for the red herring.

ok...my idea was pretty easy to add:

So in case of an exe based -listsoftware export, the tool now checks if there is a hashfolder for the exe file, takes all *.xml files in there which are not already matching a softwarelist name in the -listsoftware export and additionally loads them to the collection....
works fine...so the only thing which is assumed is that the hash xml filename does match its stored softwarelist name attribute value.....

So...no more overseen skipped software list hashes....(unless -listsoftware export does not also skip entries within exported data)

Thanks, looking forward to testing this once you release the binary. I guess this method is easiest to implement after all?  Will the sets scanned from the hash folder show up in the logs at a specific verbosity?

Also, I ran a more exhaustive search for any sync issues between -listsoftware and the hash directory and couldn't find anything, so I wrote this issue report.  Vas Crabb closed it though, stating no intention to support orphaned lists within the output, so unfortanately it seems another method such as the one you've done in clrmame will indeed be necessary to capture and scan all documented sets. At least we have our answer now with a specific reason given.

16

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 29 September 2024, 18:39 »

attache, coleco_homebrew, coleco, evio, lk3000, etc..

What do you mean exactly? -listsoftware lists them and clrmame complains about machines in there when something is missing in there (or unneeded)
...
Update: 1) or do you mean only the hash xml changed...well, if -listsoftware was used, clrmame stores an export of it in its export folder and rememebers the hash of the exe file....so pure changes in a mame hash folder aren't automatically detected. You could clean the exports folder though...

Yes, I mean that in this particular case, my script compared files in the mame 0.269 and 0.270 hash directories, whereas clrmame compared 0.270 -listsoftware output with complete 0.269 sets located in the software rom path.  You can of course manually compare 0.269 with 0.270 versions of one of those software lists e.g. coleco and you'll see what I mean.  However as I now understand, we can't rely on the results of both methods to be the same because -listsoftware doesn't capture everything listed in the hash folder for some reason.

regarding the 2nd list, yes, -listsoftware does not include all data from MAME's hashfolder. I don't know why (actually I also not asked MAME devs about it) but it's known for years. And yes, such entries will be reported as unneeded since they are not included in -listsoftware.
So a solution would be to keep them separated and scan them with a hash xml....
have to think about it more deeply....
...
2) Hmm...maybe when doing a -listsoftware export from an exe file I could try to locate the hashfolder and match up if there are xml files in there which aren't included and simply merge them in......as I said...I need to think about it...but I like the idea.

I think this would be a suitable workaround (and you can use the two sets of software lists I noted above as a reference if it helps), and it would also help to catch future sync issues.  Another workaround might be to dynamically build a master software list file via the individual files in the hash directory, and just not use -listsoftware at all.  Yet another might be to expose an option to use the "cleaner" -listsoftware method or the "more complete" hash folder method (for whenever your batch feature is added).  In any event though, this is best addressed at the source, directly with the mame team.  It would be ideal if they could trap the condition prior to a given point release so it doesn't happen again.  Do you know whether a Github issue report or mametesters issue has been created for this?  Even if it's been known for years, without a formal report it might not be addressed.

I've been wanting to add to my site for a while now a dat that includes the lists in \hash but not yet included in -listsoftware.

Thanks! Yours is yet another decent workaround, and I use your helpful datfiles all the time, though in this particular case for the future it might be best to let Roman dynamically build a more inclusive list within clrmame itself so you don't have to do it manually for every release.

17

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 29 September 2024, 05:26 »

Ah yes of course.  I suppose that should have been obvious; in cmpro I always thought of the path to the executable as without options to actually send flags to it, since I never used it for that purpose.  Good to know.  Thanks!

18

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmame first-run questions

« on: 29 September 2024, 01:36 »

Regarding item 1, I used to have 30 or so \hash\xmls that I would bring into the old clrmamepro but with the new one I just use the single file output of mame.exe -listsoftware and then use an XPath filter statement that only checks \software directories I collect.  This is much cleaner and less steps.

Thanks, John!  That's exactly what I did, and you're right, it's a better method overall.

Roman:

First, wow I'm impressed. You new tool not only looks better, but it's better organized, the options are clear and generally make more sense, and the speed... wow.  I've been using cmpro every month since your first release in 97, and if you had this tool back then, I'm pretty sure I would have had at least a year more of my life by now

So to your comments:

1. As I mentioned to John, the new method just works so well that I don't believe I'll need a batch profiler anymore (though it's cool that you're planning on it!). That said, would you consider an option to trigger mame -softwarelists within clrmame, so it doesn't need to be run out of band?

Also, I wrote a shell script to compare hash values between 0.269 and 0.270, iterating on each software set within the mame "hash" directory.  However, upon completion of the scan, clrmame did not pick up on changes for certain software sets that my shell script reported.  Can you help me understand why? The sets it missed are:

Code: [Select]

attache
coleco_homebrew
coleco
evio
lk3000
nes_kstudio
nes_ntbrom
pv1000
pv2000
smc777
supracan
Also, it reported on certain sets that were "unneeded" which is probably expected behavior since they don't seem to be in the mame -softwarelists output xml, however they DO have corresponding xml files in the hash folder, so I wonder - is this really an issue with mame -softwarelists not capturing all the sets, or are they somewhere else and I'm just blind?  Those sets are:

Code: [Select]

3do_m2
advantage
carbeena
gba_ereader
gtfore
ique
lisa2
pippin_flop
sat_vccart
snes_vkun
tandy6k
2. Great to know!  I'll just rebuild to the source folder then, since it's safe.  That's the way I was doing it in cmpro too, so I kindof expected it would be okay, but wanted to be sure before taking the leap.

3. After I typed my message I did also notice that the input box allows for free text, so yes you're right I can just add the path there.  That said, it's a little better to add an "all" setting. 

19

clrmame Discussion / clrmame first-run questions

« on: 27 September 2024, 21:03 »

Hi Roman, finally getting around to testing your shiny new clrmame tool and I have a few questions:

1. I currently use cmpro to scan batches of software lists from the profiler, by selecting multiple .xml software list files, and then cmpro handles them all at once.  I'm wondering how I would accomplish the same thing using clrmame?  It doesn't have to be "batch mode" per se, if it handles the scanning in a different way but achieves the same thing. 

2. cmpro permits rebuilds to the same target directory where the software is stored, without worrying about overwriting vital data.  I assume clrmame does the same thing, and this sort of action is safe?

3. There's no way to select the linux mame binary since clrmame filters out files that don't have .exe or .xml extensions (the linux mame binary is just "mame" with no extension).  Can you permit this in the future so the binary wouldn't have to be renamed for each clrmame operation?
 
Thanks!

20

clrmame Discussion / Re: CHD scanning time with cmpro

« on: 08 August 2024, 21:22 »

Hah, why am I not surprised you've been that far ahead of the curve?

I wasn't even aware of blit7z, interesting. It's even Mozilla PL 2.0 which I assume would be fine by you.  Heck I'd be happy to add a feature request there for what you need if you think it would help, though from what you're saying I suppose that kind of work is already underway.