Decoding QSaved Files

[NormanDunbar]

New topic to avpoid flooding a different one, with mainly irrelevant stuff (Irrelevant to that other topic I mean!)

I havent tested extensively but DECODE_SAV seems not to work with integer
tokens produced by Qloadref V1.9 and possibly other, not ancient, versions
of QSAVE. V1.9 is the current version of QLOAD/QSAVE that came with
Q_Liberator V3.36 and beyond. The SMSQ/E version works fine.

Do you know what the token codes that are being missed/messed are please? EDIT: $89 and $86 for 2 and 4 byte integers. However, I'm puzzled by the range of these as per your LIST document. two bytes covers values -128 through +127 and 4 byte integers are for 128 and above? Sadluy, I don't have Mievra to test with though. Could you upload me a quick and dirty test sample please? Much obliged.

Note that these utilities are pretty useless. All they do is convert
tokenised S*BASIC programs (SAV files) into their human-readable form -
something the S*BASIC interpreters manage perfectly well on their own!

Of course they are! I knew that when I wrote mine many, many years ago. However, I was working on something or other back then---I forget what---and I needed the RAM to be able to do something with a SuperBASIC program. I didn't have enough RAM to have the source program and the proposed utility/program/application/whatever it was, loaded together.

The decode_sav mini-program was my starting point to decode a QSAVEd program which, if I had ever got around to finishing it, would have been converted to whatever the thing I was writing, back then, would have been!

Getting old is a PITA, you forget a lot of things!

Let's, for the sake of argument, say I had been planning to write a new version of Turbo. However, instead of compiling the source program already loaded, the plan was to QSAVE it and then compile the QSAVEd version, more memeory and/or bigger source programs could be compiled in that way. At least, that was my thinking. But no, I wasn't planning on rewriting Turbo!

Cheers,
Norm.

[pjw]

New topic to avpoid flooding a different one, with mainly irrelevant stuff (Irrelevant to that other topic I mean!)

I havent tested extensively but DECODE_SAV seems not to work with integer
tokens produced by Qloadref V1.9 and possibly other, not ancient, versions
of QSAVE. V1.9 is the current version of QLOAD/QSAVE that came with
Q_Liberator V3.36 and beyond. The SMSQ/E version works fine.

Do you know what the token codes that are being missed/messed are please? EDIT: $89 and $86 for 2 and 4 byte integers. However, I'm puzzled by the range of these as per your LIST document. two bytes covers values -128 through +127 and 4 byte integers are for 128 and above? Sadluy, I don't have Mievra to test with though. Could you upload me a quick and dirty test sample please? Much obliged.

I havent quite finished. I havent tested the range for the four byte variant yet.

Note that these utilities are pretty useless. All they do is convert
tokenised S*BASIC programs (SAV files) into their human-readable form -
something the S*BASIC interpreters manage perfectly well on their own!

Of course they are! I knew that when I wrote mine many, many years ago. However, I was working on something or other back then---I forget what---and I needed the RAM to be able to do something with a SuperBASIC program. I didn't have enough RAM to have the source program and the proposed utility/program/application/whatever it was, loaded together.

I know you know, Norm ;o) My audience was those who dont.

The decode_sav mini-program was my starting point to decode a QSAVEd program which, if I had ever got around to finishing it, would have been converted to whatever the thing I was writing, back then, would have been!

Getting old is a PITA, you forget a lot of things!

Let's, for the sake of argument, say I had been planning to write a new version of Turbo. However, instead of compiling the source program already loaded, the plan was to QSAVE it and then compile the QSAVEd version, more memeory and/or bigger source programs could be compiled in that way. At least, that was my thinking. But no, I wasn't planning on rewriting Turbo!

That could work, and maybe it wouldnt be too hard either. But I dont think there is any need for it these days.
Heres the test program:

Code: Select all

100 Sel on x
102 = -300: print -300
104 = -257: print -257
106 = -258: print -258
108 = -1: print -1
110 = -100: print -100
112 =  0: print 0
114 =  1: print 1
116 =  126: print 126
118 =  127: print 127
120 =  128: print 128
122 =  129: print 129
124 =  130: print 130
126 =  131: print 131
128 =  132: print 132
130 =  254: print 254
132 =  255: print 255
134 =  256: print 256
136 =  257: print 257
138 =  300: print 300
140 =  500: print 500
142 end sel

I had to zip the SAV version:

demo.zip

Demo

(666 Bytes) Downloaded 1 time

It was QSAVEd with QLOADREF under Qdos, with QSAVE being version 1.9. I think it is identical if saved under Minerva with the same QLOADQREF. Ive just tried so many variants I no longer know which is which..

[pjw]

Talking of ambitious projects, I started to write an S*BASIC editor with syntax colouring and various other bells and whistles using my decoder as the starting point. Viewing code in glorious colour wasnt too hard, but editing was a lot more difficult (re-parsing each line, etc), so I abandoned the project and ended up merely outputting the code as HTML instead.