Only a .variants/ copy matched IPLROM.X1 exactly, so x1 got
Recalbox's second md5 while iplrom.x1, the dump every platform
pins, sat beside it. When every exact-case match is a variant, a
primary in the same directory under its own name joins the
candidates. Another machine's font.rom or an alias pointing at a
different file does not.
slots dropped the last extension of any .variants/ name, so a
variant stored under its plain name (63 of them, aes.zip among
them) was not the family of its primary and a platform declaring
both at one path would read as a collision. The database already
stripped an eight-hex suffix only; both now read one function.
A copy under .variants/ exists to hold a content its primary does
not. 29 held bytes another file already carried, under a second or
third identity: msx.rom and MSX.ROM variants equal to
MSX_8020-20bios.rom, naomi2.zip.da79eca4 whose suffix named the
primary's sha1 rather than its own. dedup now removes such a copy,
keeping one when only variants hold the content. The LaserActive
PAC-S10 BIOS lived only under .variants/ while RetroBat names it
without a hash; it moves beside its siblings.
naomi_roms.h opens each BIOS archive member by filename, one per
region. Without the names, a copy of hod2bios.zip lacking
epr-21329.ic27 counted as the archive and Japan games had no BIOS.
The name step only ranked archive copies by members declared
through archive sub-entries, and the contents an archive entry lists
never reached the resolver, so the first copy indexed won. contents
now ranks copies by crc32, or by member name where the code opens
by name, and the report and both extra passes carry it. With no
layout declared, a primary holding every ROM of the others wins;
two revisions keep the index order.
The four MT-32 and CM-32L ROMs had a second copy in the Amiga
tree, and the identity exemption that hid the crossing named a
DOSBox tree instead. The copies move next to the Munt ROMs already
under Roland, and each exemption now names the makers it covers,
so a copy under a third one is reported.
Abdessamad Derraz