dsi_bios7.bin and dsi_bios9.bin hold the DSi Panda devkit boot ROMs, eMMC
key-Y zeroed. Every md5 and crc32 declared under those names designates
a retail dump in the same directory, yet hashless entries (RetroBat,
dsperate) got the devkit ROMs by name. by_proven_name maps such a name to
the proven primaries beside it. kick13.rom, dsi_firmware.bin and
spectrum.zip follow the same rule.
RetroPie was the only platform with status: archived, which kept it out
of verify --all, slots, the pipeline and list_platforms unless
--include-archived was typed. release_pack already decides which packs a
release publishes and the installer serves every platform, so the status
set nothing apart. The field, its schema entry and the flag are gone, and
RetroPie is covered by every full run like any other platform.
A hashless profile entry adopted the only exact holder of its name as the file its aliases designate. dosbox's SC-55 ROM2.BIN found Galaksija's ROM2.BIN, and ROM2_ST.BIN was indexed against a 4 KiB BASIC ROM while SC-55's rom2.bin sat under the same folded name. The name now has to designate one file once case is folded, a primary and its own variants counted as one.
files/?sha1= of a file the collection no longer holds answered that no
file the site knows has the hash. generate_db.py now records each sha1 a
rebuild drops in retired.json, with the day and the file in its place,
backfilled from the history since 0d586ef6b (4,139 files). The lookup
answers with it and leads to the successor's card.
AmberELEC's nec-pc-88 declares DISK.ROM with an empty md5. QUASI88 reads
that name as n88sub.rom, the 2 KB PC-88 disk ROM (libretro.c:1085), but
the name step served the 16 KB MSX disk ROM, the only primary of that
name. The quasi88 alias never reached by_name, which refuses an alias a
primary already carries.
load_platform_config now writes each entry's system as platform_system.
A platform entry with no hash and no owning emulator, whose system id
names a maker, takes no name candidate filed under another maker, in
the name step and in the hash_mismatch step after it. When nothing is
left, by_shadowed_alias, the profile aliases by_name refuses, answers
within the system's maker folder. names_manufacturer and BUCKET_FOLDERS
move to common.py, and generate_site imports them.
Across every registered platform the only resolution that moves is
AmberELEC nec-pc-88 DISK.ROM, from bios/Microsoft/MSX/DISK.ROM to
bios/NEC/PC-88/N88SUB.ROM. Manifests, truth and exports are otherwise
byte-identical.
Genesis Plus GX declares bios_U.sms and bios_E.sms with no hash. Only
.variants/ copies carried those names, so the name step served the Store
Display Unit BIOS and a 256 KB BIOS, while every platform pins v1.3 under
both. Two causes in generate_db: the v1.3 content's path was ZEsarUX's
sms.rom, which the resolver sets aside as another emulator's file, and a
name pinned by hash was refused when only variants carried it.
The scan now prefers a copy filed under its machine over one in an
emulator's own tree, and a name only variants carry can name the content
a hash pins it to.
Manifests: six contents change repo_path only (v1.3 SMS BIOS and five
ZEsarUX Spectrum ROMs, same sha1). On batocera, knulli, recalbox and
retrodeck the Genesis Plus GX bios_E.sms and bios_U.sms extras move from
the two variants to v1.3.
A profile entry without a hash matched the collection by name, but
only primary names were looked up, and which copy of identical bytes is
primary follows path order. After the refile, project64's
64DD_IPL_v12_JPN.bin was a copy, so 64dd_ipl_J.bin and 64dd_ipl_U.bin left
the name index. The lookup now counts every copy's name, and a name held
by two contents still names neither.
DraStic opens nds_bios_arm9.bin, nds_bios_arm7.bin and nds_firmware.bin and checks their size. Its nine aliases are in none of its binaries, and neither platform launcher passes them: ROCKNIX links the two BIOS names from its bios folder, and RetroPie runs DraStic from $md_conf_root/nds/drastic (drastic.sh:48), now a passes_path record. The collection answers DraStic's names with its DS dumps in generate_db, where repository names belong.
mkstemp creates its scratch 0600 and os.replace kept that mode, so
database.json, the manifests, the packs, the recipe snapshots and the
large-file cache were readable by their owner only. set_plain_mode
gives the scratch 0o666 less the umask, as open() would, before each
rename. A test walks every function that renames a mkstemp file.
The pipeline rebuilds the database with --force, which discarded the previous digests and wrote whatever the CPU computed, on a host that has given an incorrect SHA-1 under load. The forced run still rehashes every file, but a digest that contradicts the cache for an unchanged mtime and size is computed again, and the two readings that agree win, with a warning naming the file.
Profiles, the wiki, comments, docstrings, command output and schema descriptions carried em-dashes, clause-joining semicolons, unicode arrows, box-drawing banners and check-mark glyphs. Each sentence was rewritten rather than having its character swapped. Hashes, paths, source_ref values and every cited file:line are unchanged, which a comparison of each parsed profile against the previous revision confirms.
validate_pr comments now say PASS and FAIL in words, and source_ref values in a profile's structured blocks render as code. test_prose_style fails if any of these comes back, in tracked files or in the generated site.
generate_db wrote a database without the aliases of a profile it could not read, and the MAME and FBNeo refreshes passed without it. Each now names the file and exits non-zero.
argparse completed a prefix into the only flag starting with it:
slots.py --emulator read profiles from a directory named after the
emulator and reported nothing, and pipeline.py --all built every pack
variant. Every parser now refuses an abbreviation.
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.
generate_pack kept a private .gitignore parser whose cache ignored the
root it was asked about, and generate_db a copy of the shared one. Both
now read largefiles.load_registered_paths, cached per root. Test modules
whose main block preceded their last class end with it again.
The cached hashes were rebuilt by iterating a set, so their order in
each database entry followed set hashing rather than a declared one. A
run with a warm cache rewrote all 7,850 entries with no content change.
The order is now the one compute_hashes returns, and a test holds a
warm-cache run byte-identical to a --force rehash.
Two entries claimed bios/Sony/PlayStation 3/PS3UPDAT.PUP with different
SHA1s. Preserving large-file entries matched on path and keyed on
SHA1, so replacing a firmware revision on disk left the old entry
pointing at a path that now serves other bytes. A preserved entry whose
path the scan has already claimed is dropped, and validate_schemas
refuses a database where one path carries two entries.
Separately, a run without --force rebuilt each cached entry from a
hand-written list of four digests and wrote it back without adler32,
so one such run stripped the digest from every file permanently. A
cache entry missing any digest is now a miss.
A declared hash that the local dump contradicts is not one situation. An
existence platform never reads the bytes, so withholding the file lets an
upstream list error remove something the frontend would have loaded; a
hash platform would reject it, so shipping it is pointless.
The mode now decides, at every point that had an opinion: pack building,
core complement, emulator packs, manifests, conformance and
_intentional_hash_exclusion. verify.find_undeclared_files follows, since
verify and generate_pack must agree file for file.
Also here: resolution reports which evidence matched rather than a flat
"exact", a path or filename can no longer override a declared hash, and
safe_extract_zip treats a Windows backslash as the separator it is
instead of refusing the archive.
generate_db: add by_sha256 index for O(1) variant lookup.
verify: _find_best_variant uses indexed sha256 instead of O(n) scan.
validation: check_file_validation returns (reason, emulators) tuple,
attributing mismatch only to emulators whose check actually failed.
beetle_psx: remove incorrect size field for ps1_rom.bin (code does
not validate size, swanstation is sole size authority).
Run ruff check --fix: remove unused imports (F401), fix f-strings
without placeholders (F541), remove unused variables (F841), fix
duplicate dict key (F601).
Run isort --profile black: normalize import ordering across all files.
Run ruff format: apply consistent formatting (black-compatible) to
all 58 Python files.
3 intentional E402 remain (imports after require_yaml() must execute
after yaml is available).
9 new wiki pages: getting-started, faq, troubleshooting,
advanced-usage, verification-modes, adding-a-platform,
adding-a-scraper, testing-guide, release-process.
Updated architecture.md with mermaid diagrams, tools.md with
full pipeline and target/exporter sections, profiling.md with
missing fields, index.md with glossary and nav links.
Expanded CONTRIBUTING.md from stub to full contributor guide.
Filter .old.yml from load_emulator_profiles, generate_db alias
collection, and generate_readme counts. Fix BizHawk sha1 mode
in tools.md, fix RetroPie path, fix export_truth.py typos.
write_if_changed in common.py compares content after stripping
timestamps (generated_at, Auto-generated on, Generated on).
applied to generate_db, generate_readme, generate_site.
eliminates timestamp-only diffs in database.json, README.md,
mkdocs.yml, and 423 docs pages.
add --emulator, --system, --standalone, --list-emulators, --list-systems
to verify.py and generate_pack.py. packs are RTU with data directories,
regional BIOS variants, and archive support.
validation: field per file (size, crc32, md5, sha1) with conflict
detection. by_path_suffix index in database.json for regional variant
resolution via dest_hint. restructure GameCube IPL to regional subdirs.
66 E2E tests, full pipeline verified.
Abdessamad Derraz