ChunkLink

by Dan Ellis


Chunklink is a tool for programmers that works in conjunction with the Acorn DDE (Desktop Development Environment), as provided with the Acorn C/C++ package and previous releases of Desktop C etc. (although it can also be used from the command line). It links together files into the Chunk File Format, as described in the PRM and DDE manuals.

Using ChunkLink
ChunkLink links together several files into the Chunk File Format. The 4-byte header is given in textual form. The special header #acf will use the Acorn chunk file header &C3CBC6C5, used for libraries and object files. The names of the chunks are taken from the first 8 characters of the input filenames. This allows you to have more than one chunk with the same chunk name; e.g. the files DBS_HEAD, DBS_RCRD1, DBS_RCRD2 would give a chunk file with a DBS_HEAD chunk and two DBS_RCRD chunks. The first four characters (in this case DBS_) should really be registered with Acorn if you intend to use them in software on public release (to prevent clashes, although this should not be a problem if you use your own filetype). The last four characters are then up to you.

The software is provided as an application that uses Acorn's DDE. If you do not have this, then you can use the program from the command line. The syntax is:
ChunkLink <outfile> <file id> <infile 1> [<infile 2> ...]

If you do have the DDE, and you wish to use this application with Make, then you will need to copy the ChunkLink executable to your library directory.

 Copyright RISC User magazine 1998
