Re: [offtopic] Save File Format, anyone?

On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 03:52:01AM -0600, Scott Klement wrote:
>
> The only thing IBM seems to want to document about save files is that
> they have fixed-length 528 byte records.

That's a start.  It's not compressed, either, since I translated it to ASCII
with dd and saw some plain text and a whole bunch of zeros.

>
> I believe that a save file can contain any data.  It's purpose is to be a
> disk file with the same semantics as a tape or diskette file.  (i.e.
> sequential only, fixed-size blocks, etc)

Right.  I pretty much figured out it was the AS/400 equivalent of a .tar
That's part of the reason I'd like to hack it.  (Actually, the proper way
would be to extend cpio to handle this archive format. ;-)

>
> What you REALLY want to know is what command was used to populate the save
> file, and what format that command writes data in.   If the save file was
> created using the SAVLIB command or SAVOBJ command, then you'll want to
> know the format of data created with those commands.  And that format is
> release-specific, and AFIAK undocumented.

How can it be release specific if people are posting save files for Open
Source AS/400 stuff on the web?  Maybe it's backwards compatible, with new
releases having new features that are ignored by older versions, but that's
fine with me--tar is like that.

>
> You're probably better off doing what other people suggest and just
> restoring the SAVF to an AS/400, and then transferring the source out of
> it directly.

Hehehe.  Undoubtedly, but I don't like things like logic and practicality
stop me when I'm on a roll ;-)

>
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, Jay 'Eraserhead' Felice wrote:
>
> > Just a question, anyone know of documentation of the IBM save file format?
> > A pointer to ibm.com would be handy (I can't even seem to find their old
> > AS/400 library either... they seem to have replaced it with this new-fangled
> > thing with less information.  Maybe I'm just being dense.).
> >
> > I've run accross some Open Source AS/400 programs which I'd like to poke at
> > on Linux, but I gotta get them out of the box first ;-)
> >
> > -Jason
>