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[krs000a]

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and I'm trying to understand how to use the clrmamepro... I have a few questions.
1. What should I do, if I have a ROM folder containing both merged, unmerged and split sets, and I want clrmamepro to go over all of these roms, take the neccessary files and create brand new split sets (only split sets)? Is the rebuilder the feature I should use in this case?
2. Would the rebuilder make brand new ZIP files for all ROMS, including the ZIP files which already are split sets in the source folder, or would it only rebuild the ones which aren't?
3. If the ZIP files in the source directory are of different compression levels, would the rebuilder use the same compression level for all the new ZIP files? I would like to use the same compression level for consistency.
4. What about if I want to go thru the same procedure as in question #1, but with ZIP files containing Samples? Would the rebuilder also rebuild new ZIP files for the Samples? If not, how would I go about doing it for the sample files?
5. Lastly, CHD files... Doing what is in question #1 for CHD files, how would I go about?

Also, when I first set clrmamepro up, I did not specify any DAT files, I let it create one using the latest version of MAME's exe file. Will this work for CHD files as well, or do I HAVE to use DAT files for CHD?
And are there any particular pro/cons of letting mameclrpro create a DAT using MAME's exe?

Sorry for all the questions... Thank you for reading and hoping for some answers. :-)

[f205v]

1) the ROM folder containing a mixture of merged, unmerged and split sets should be used as the SOURCE directory in the REBUILDER; a newly created, empty folder should be your DESTINATION directory.
2) Yes, the DESTINATION will contain newly created zip files for ALL the sets it can create. Your DESTINATION folder will contain the BEST POSSIBLE collection of split sets made from your original SOURCE directory. If you flag "remove matched sourcefile" every file in SOURCE which finds a new home in DESTINATION will be cancelled from SOURCE. If you leave it unflaged your SOURCE will remain untouched.
3) They will all be of the same compression level.
4) it works for samples as it works for roms.
5) that's tricky! CHDs are a rather special format, and to be honest clrmame doesn't handle them very well.

You did right, it is always better to let clrmame create it's own datfile from MAME executable.

Give it a try, and ask again form more directions if you encounter problems.

[Roman]

Let's start with the rebuilder.

The rebuilder takes a file (a file within an rar/7z/zip file), gets its checksum (so it does not care about the name at all), matches this checksum with the loaded database and creates EACH found instance of it in the destination, where it uses the name(s) from the database. So one source file can lead to multiple destination files (they are bytewise identical but may vary in setnames and filenames....image that a common prom is for example used by various pacman sets...just as an example).
The rebuilder is usually used as
a) a quick way to convert collections (e.g. transfer MAME roms to Nebula)
b) pick correct files from a up messed up collection folders...and add it to your collection...so the Rebuilder is commonly used as an ADDER...and is file based, not set based.

It does not recreate archives in the destination. If they already exist, the matched files are added. Depending on your rebuilder settings the files are not necessarily recompressed. Typically they single files within the archives are copied over without de-and recompression. Of course they get recompressed if you use rar or 7z files.

The scanner is set based, finds the issues and -if enabled- tries to fix them.

So...to cleanup your collection a scanner run is fine...it will reorganize your sets.

Samples: If you don't have a separate datfile where samples are listed with checksums, you won't be able to use the rebuilder on samples. Pure MAME offers for samples on their name, no size, no hash information.
On the other hand, if you have a datfile with any kind of data stored in "rom" elements (so no matter if these are romdumps, jpgs, sample files or your private p**n collection, you can use the rebuilder again.
Generally, the scanner of course handles sample files..it will tell you what is unneeded or missing.

CHDs are containers for compressed data. The rebuilder will only tell you if it found a matched chd, it does not rebuild them. Well, at least in the public versions ;-)

A quick way to reorganize them is to move the chds to a rompath root folder and let the scanner move them to their correct place.

[krs000a]

Thanks for the answers!
I'm going to try to understand this... Since simply running the rebuilder won't necessarily result in newly created archives (in the case where an archive in the source folder is already an intact split set - right?) what would then be the easiest way of accomplishing what I'm trying to do? Run the rebuilder and choose a different compression format than zip (so it would be forced to create new archives into the other format), let it finish, then run it again back to ZIP? Hope I got this right and didn't misunderstand.

Two more questions, regarding the way the rebuilder works... You say it does not recognize filenames, only checksums... In the event of someone going into an archive and renaming all files within to...anything, say "file 1.mp3", "file 2.txt", "file 3.avi", the rebuilder will still recognize the files and rename them into the accurate file names for the destination archive/folder?
And...when it compares the checksums and finds a matching file, it won't actually create any archives in the destination folder unless it find a complete set, right? Just so I won't end up with a bunch of of incomplete sets.
Sorry if these questions are dumb, but I really need to know.

[Roman]

The rebuilder ADDs files to the destination. If an archive exists there, it won't be deleted. If that destination archive already holds misc files they won't get overwritten.
If the destination archive does not exist yet, it gets created.
If the destination archive holds a file of the to-be-added file, cmpro backups the file first before it gets replaced (if it's identical to the to-be-added one, it won't be added).

The rebuilder only ADDs matched files. It will create ANY instance of the matches...so if a file is shared in 1000 sets, that one file gets ADDED to 1000 sets.

You can use the scanner to clean up your merged/splitmerged sets. There is no need for a full rebuild.

The rebuilder is FILE based. It does not care at all about sets or even set completeness. It takes a source file (single file inside a source zip/rar/7z or single file), matches and creates all matches directly. Then it continues with the next source file.
So this does not mean anything about creating a full set in the destination at all.
And yes, the source file name is of no interest. The correct filenames will be taken from the database for the destination.

So if you got a sourcefile 1.mp3 with checksum 0x12345678 and 0x12345678 is listed 10x in the database in let's say 10 different sets with 10 different romnames it will add the 10 files to the destination...using the stored 10 different names then...