Batocera, KNULLI, Recalbox, RetroBat and RetroDECK hand a libretro core <saves>/<system> at each launch. Each copy lands below every system that runs the core. EmuDeck keeps one unsorted saves/retroarch/saves. The unsupported platforms record why.
load_from: save_dir entries of a libretro build were left out of every
pack. They now go below the platform's save folder (registry
save_directory: RetroArch saves/, Lakka savefiles/, by core), the
manifest marks them root: save, and verify replays the same placement.
Platforms keeping saves per system or per game list them as omitted.
A system that lists the cores it runs is settled by those cores alone, so an unprofiled core of another system no longer leaves its entries open. Readers whose core runs the entry's system are named first, and cores that only share the file name are listed as such.
Two test modules still unpacked nine values from verify_pack_against_platform. The category evidence joined readers with semicolons, which the prose rule refuses on generated pages, and three comments used clause semicolons.
The install manifest marks each game data file "category": "game_data":
a platform entry only game data profile entries read, or a core file its
profile declares game data. Firmware carries no category. Every manifest
says "categorized": true so the installer can refuse an older list.
generate_pack.py --no-game-data cuts those files from the platform list
and the core profiles before the build, names each one with the cores that
read it as game data, and tags the pack _NoGameData through _narrowings.
verify.py and the pack check take the same cut, so --verify-packs and the
report describe the pack the builder wrote. Modes without a platform
(--emulator, --system alone, --from-md5) and --all-variants refuse it.
Held entries carry their category and readers too, not only missing ones, so each platform page says which cores read every file it lists and where the code does it. Severity still applies to firmware gaps only.
Each missing platform entry now carries its evidence: the profile entries that read it with their source reference, the cores of its system examined without finding a reader, or why the question stays open. verify --verbose prints it, --json carries it and the platform pages show it.
A platform list can name a game's data files or a file no core it runs opens. Verify gives each missing entry a category read from the profiles of the platform's cores: firmware, game data or unread. Only firmware gaps carry a severity and fail --strict; the others are counted on their own line, and the pack check no longer counts them as pack errors. Missing firmware stays a conformance error.
A platform can hand each libretro core a system directory of its own
(core_system_dirs). platform_layouts then gives one view per directory,
so the gap report, the builder, the manifest, slots and cross_reference
place a core's files below each folder it is handed, and a core handed
none gets no file. Resolution strips the folder again and searches the
collection by the core's own path.
The -listxml names, for every machine, its parent (romof), the devices of its default configuration (device_ref) and the cards its slots offer (slotoption). A machine takes the system of the first set on its romof chain a written entry lists, and passes it to each device it can instantiate. A device set reached from one system gets system:, from several the new per-entry systems:, from none neither, and keeps serving every system of the profile. The gap report, the core extras and slots read the entry's own systems, so generate_pack --system and the installer pick by them.
generate_pack and verify read --system beside --platform through common.resolve_system_arg, built on platform_system_names, the mapping the manifest's system_names comes from. verify --platform --system now reports on the narrowed pack. Unknown names are refused with suggestions before the database is read.
verify resolved offline, so a release asset absent from bios/ and the
cache read as missing while an online build fetched and packed it. verify
now reads the database record of the registered path and counts such a
declaration present, listed as fetched at build time. --offline keeps the
old count, and the offline pipeline passes it to its verify step.
A core extra resolved by name shipped on existence platforms even when
the core's own size check turns the copy away. The RetroPie pack carried
the 128 KB Apple IIGS ROM as Basilisk II's ROM (min 512 KB). The builder,
the manifest and verify now read validation.core_size_refusal, which
accepts a copy any version of the same profile slot takes.
NanoBoyAdvance opens general.bios_path, default bios.bin (src/platform/core/src/config.cpp:36 at 3bb6f478). gba_bios.bin is the path ROCKNIX's config.toml sets, recorded under launchers: in rocknix.yml.
Without the alias the entry met only PCem's and QEMU's bios.bin, 64 and 128 KB, which BIOSLoader refuses (bios.cpp:17-48). verify counted it held by name, so the launcher layer left it alone and the ROCKNIX pack gained PCem's image. A hashless entry whose every same-named copy fails its size is now not held, and the gba_bios.bin ROCKNIX declares settles it.
164 entries wore the in repo badge with no copy named: they are held as
a ZIP member or in a data directory, which the database does not index.
held_copy() finds that copy and the card names it. storage: large_file
no longer counts as held by itself: kenji-nx's user-picked firmware
package read as held although nothing collects it.
The second pass, the archive-prefix pass and the agnostic scan built
extras without source_name or source_path, so verify found no gap report
entry for them and counted game data such as hiscore.dat as core files.
Every extra now carries its entry's category and key, and verify reads
the category from the extra the builder places.
verify --emulator listed only OK destinations, while the emulator pack
also writes a copy whose hash the profile contradicts, loose or archive.
pack_destinations now records the paths the replay places, and both
branches resolve through packresolve.resolve_file as the pack does.
verify resolved platform entries with common.resolve_local_file and put
the slot override first, and the region pass added a destination hint.
packresolve.resolve_declaration now serves the builder, the manifest,
verify and the region pass: release assets cached for a file absent from
bios/ count as shipped in all four, and a release asset keeps its answer
over a slot override.
Ranking contested core claims sorted the whole gap report, which
reordered every manifest. Only the claims on one contested path move now,
grouped where the first of them stood, and two spellings of a path are
one group where the filesystem folds case (RetroBat's 64DD_IPL_DEV.bin).
An entry without a destination (EmuDeck's system:md5 whitelist) no
longer counts as a pack path in verify, and step 5 prints one status for
counts and paths together. A full offline run compared all 12 archives
and 930 emulator packs path by path, every one equal.
Thirty one-line labels in verify.py, generate_site.py and
generate_truth.py named the statement under them ("# Load registry",
"# Copy branding assets"). Comments that give a reason stay, as do the
module section headers. A test reads the three files for new ones.
verify --platform printed N optional core files and N game data files
missing and named none, even with --verbose. --verbose now lists them as
MISSING (optional) and MISSING (game data), and without it the count line
says --verbose lists them, as the line about cores with no external file
already did.
declaration_settles tested the exact-case name before the slot, so on a
filesystem that folds case a declaration spelled otherwise never settled
the core's file: RetroBat's 32X_G_BIOS.BIN left BlastEm's 32X_G_BIOS.bin
undeclared, and verify counted ten such entries as core files. A slot a
case-insensitive platform fills now settles the entry whatever the
spelling (case_folded_slots), the slot arbitration judging its bytes as
for the exact name. Lakka and RetroPie, which keep both names, are
unchanged. Measured: 10 entries settle on RetroBat, 21 on RetroArch.
generate_site.py builds its gap report through cross_reference() without
the folded slots; it needs folded_declared_slots() passed in the same way
as the command line now does.
Started outside the repository root, both ended on a FileNotFoundError
traceback: the database and the data registry name files from the root.
They now move to the root after reading the paths the caller typed, which
stay relative to where they were typed.
Step 5 compared (ok, total) and the core file count. RetroArch, Lakka
and RetroPie read 526/526 on both sides while verify credited four paths
below SGB1.sfc and SGB2.sfc that the pack never writes: a declared file
blocks them as a directory. verify now places the platform files in the
builder's order with the same path rules, and a user_provided or
external declaration keeps its slot on both sides, so no core file takes
it in the report only.
verify --destinations writes the paths each pack holds by the report,
and step 5 compares them with the archive members (notes and data tree
members set aside). Every emulator profile, in each build it has, is
built in memory (PackRecord, nothing read or written) and compared with
verify --emulator path by path. Cost measured here: about 1 s per
platform archive and 11 s for the 930 emulator packs.
gngeopi and neo-emu declare neogeo.zip loose and, apart, the ROMs they
open inside it. The archive pass took the copy holding them, the loose
entry resolved by name to another copy, and both verify --emulator and
the emulator pack reported the archive missing while the ZIP held it.
with_archive_members() gives the loose entry the members in verify, the
pack, slots and the gap report.
--emulator accepts a buildbot core name from a profile's cores:, and a
mistyped target gets the closest names instead of every target. diff_truth
shows destinations and reports unpaired entries as evidence, not removals.
The verify summary counts discrepancies, a shared destination names both
systems, a truth hash conflict names both cores, and pipeline steps carry
their place in the real run instead of N/8. Every GitHub API caller takes
the token from github_token(), which falls back to gh auth token.
A names_searched list is one place the launcher fills with the first name it finds, so a core file it would never open once another name of the list is held is not reported missing. A place no declared file and no packed core file fills receives, under the launcher's name, a file the core accepts by content. The layer is applied inside find_undeclared_files, which verify and the pack builder both read, and a test reads their source to keep it there.
unread_on names the platforms whose launcher points the emulator at other files. RetroBat writes absolute BIOS paths into standalone BlastEm's config, so the default names were reported as required and missing there. Such an entry leaves that platform's gap report and pack, and its emulator page says where it is never opened.
Dropping the double-dash asides left 72 comments and docstrings with
half a dash glued to the next word ("shape -a size or a size range -is
all"). They now read as a colon, a comma or parentheses, and a prose
style test names any that comes back.
bundled describes the emulator's own release, and a platform package can differ both ways: Batocera's hcl package installs the binary alone and sends users to fetch the data, while its blueMSX core package copies the machines and databases beside the core. not_bundled_on and installed_on name those platforms, and the builder reads them through one rule.
A file or tree installed with the emulator is already on the user's machine, so packs, install manifests and verify's pack count leave it out. bundled is scoped by mode like any entry: Dolphin's Sys and PPSSPP's assets ship with the standalone releases, not with the libretro cores, so they now follow the libretro build only and still reach RetroArch packs. PrimeHack, standalone only, ships its own Sys.
The report counted claims, not files: several cores claim one path (rom.key by three Amiga cores, openbios.bin with and without a region) and the builder ships one file there. RetroArch read 1130 core files, 48 more than its pack. Game data ignored the in_pack marker, so RomM read 351 game data files in a pack that holds none. verify now takes both counts from its replay of the builder's placement, one per pack path.
verify replayed the builder's placement of core files with a bare name lookup, without the archive index, the data directories or the core's own choice of copy. It compared other bytes than the pack's (blueMSX's MSX2P.rom from bios/ against the data tree's copy) and let an unresolved file take a path the builder leaves free. ExtraResolver now holds the builder's lookup and both call it.
The builder never looks up a user_provided entry (it writes instructions in its place) nor an external one (fetched from its URL at build time). verify resolved both by name, so a same-named file in bios/ made it credit a file the pack does not carry.
On a hash platform the builder leaves out a file whose declared hash the local copy contradicts, but the README coverage added every UNTESTED file to the present count. RetroDECK read 2,008/2,008 for a pack carrying 2,007. verify now lists the destinations the builder refuses, and the coverage subtracts them.
verify kept its own copy of the placement rule and missed the flat RomM folder, so the report still counted 543 unreachable files as packed. It now asks the builder's ExtraPlacement. The README fraction counted every held core file, including those a platform cannot place or that a same-named packed file hides. It now counts what the pack holds.
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.
Abdessamad Derraz