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.
EmuELEC's ports system has one emulator, `ports`, the dispatch to a
script ports.yaml generates. The scraper now reads each port's engine
(the libretro core handed to emuelecRunEmu.sh with -C, else port_exe),
so devilutionx, sonic2013, soniccd, sonic-mania, reminiscence and
rigelengine are examined. Standalone emulators keep the spelling the
launch code dispatches on instead of invented lowercase forms, and
media players and runtimes go to the overrides' remove_cores.
Each system of the AmberELEC, EmuELEC and KNULLI lists now carries the
cores its ES list offers it, in menu order, under `cores:`.
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.
The pack check failed a pack for a declared file nothing in the collection resolves to, though the builder cannot ship it and verify already reports it missing. Such destinations are now counted as not in the collection; a held file absent from the pack stays an error.
minarch hands every core SDCARD_PATH/Bios/<TAG> as its system directory
and opens no file in it. The scrapers read each pak's launch.sh (core,
tag, devices), each device's core makefile (the project a library is
built from: MyMinUI's dosbox_libretro.so is dosbox-pure) and the minarch
statement, at a pinned commit. The installer recognises the card from
.system/version.txt and refuses a folder inside it.
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 installer page says how to get the port (PortMaster's catalog once
accepted, or RetroBIOS.zip in the autoinstall folder), what it shows and
needs, and why it carries install.py. The download page links to it
from the handheld table.
build_port.py runs after split_pack.py, so RetroBIOS.zip is in the
signed checksum list and uploaded with the packs. check_release.py takes
the port from that list: it is no pack, so release.json does not record
it.
ports/RetroBIOS runs install.py on a handheld with PortMaster's own
screens (pugwash fifo_control through PortMasterDialog.txt), using only
what PortMaster 2024.02.26 and the 8.5.23 copy JELOS ships. It reads the
installer through --events. scripts/build_port.py writes RetroBIOS.zip
in the layout PortMaster's release build gives a port, with the
install.py the bootstraps pin, reproducibly. tests/test_port drives the
screens with stubbed dialog functions and a fake installer.
Each OS publishes Batocera's systems dict (knulli-systems, and
batocera-systems at AmberELEC's newest prerelease commit and EmuELEC v4.8),
read with the shared parser. Cores come from each OS's own ES list.
AmberELEC and EmuELEC declare neogeo/ and ports/ beside bios/ from
/storage/roms, so their packs extract there and core_destination puts
core files under bios/.
extract_systems_dict, requirements_from_systems, platform_systems and
configgen_cores move to module level so the scrapers of lists with the
same shape read them with the same code.
Both branches extracted RetroBat's Flycast BiosPath: value_folders
already produces the record, so the dedicated extractor is dropped and
its test reads the generic one.
RetroArch_installCores (emuDeckRetroArch.sh) downloads flycast, mame,
melonds, mgba, mupen64plus_next, ppsspp and scummvm as libretro cores
next to their standalone apps. Listed as standalone only, they got one
layout: once Flycast's standalone files moved to flycast/bios/, the
libretro core lost dc/airlbios.zip, dc/naomi2.zip and dc/segasp.zip.
The scraper now writes them as dual_mode_cores.
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.
A links record naming a file is where the emulator reads it: ROCKNIX links /storage/roms/bios/nds_bios_arm9.bin into DraStic's system folder (start_drastic.sh:37-41). $biosdir, ${biosPath} and $bios_path are the BIOS directory as RetroPie, EmuDeck and RetroDECK write it, and every place of those platforms was dropped as an unknown folder. A core name the launcher replaces is no longer packed when held: EmuDeck passes Complex_4627v1.03.bin to xemu (emuDeckXemu.sh:60-61), which never opens Complex_4627.bin.
The launcher layer now reads the Saturn emulators whose option replaces
the default path, DeSmuME's pair and firmware, the melonDS DSi files and
NAND region, jzIntv arguments, BlastEm's SetBiosPath, Dolphin, Raine,
GSplus, the DOSBox and capsimg copies, Tsugaru's folder chain, RPCS3,
EKA2L1, BizHawk's GB switches and the folders that MAME, FBNeo, Snes9x,
Flycast, ScummVM, XRoar, XM6 Pro, ArcadeDuck, Demul and B-Syndrome get.
Every line of these generators that names the bios folder must be read
by a record or a stated exception, or the scrape stops.
standalone_path is relative to the directories a standalone build
resolves it against, now declared per profile (standalone_directories).
A launcher record that links or passes a whole folder of the BIOS tree
under one of them gives that folder, and platform_layouts rebases the
standalone view once for the builder, the manifest, verify and slots
(launchers.standalone_root, common.standalone_destination).
Flycast on RetroPie and ROCKNIX reads bios/dc, on EmuDeck
bios/flycast/bios, on Batocera (FLYCAST_BIOS_PATH) and RetroBat
(Dreamcast.BiosPath) bios/dc. The ROCKNIX, Batocera and RetroBat
scrapers now record the patched data directory, the environment
variable and the setting that say so.
The -listxml names the software lists each machine and slot card
declares and the floppy drives it can instantiate. --devices now writes
one entry per hash/<list>.xml the release ships under the systems of its
placed machines (111 lists, 666 stay with hash/), and files each floppy
sample under the systems whose drives select its form factor
(floppy.cpp:1428-1473, 1759-1767).
Machines a registered platform declares under one of the profile's
systems seed the walk too: bbcb, cdimono1, cdimono2, dragon32, ep64 and
ep128. Unplaced device sets go from 903 to 861.
The semantic check read systems: only. mame2010 filed seven BIOS root
sets under systems its list lacked: cpzn1, cpzn2 (zn.c:4543, 4563),
konamigv (konamigv.c:877), skns (suprnova.c:1686), alg_bios (alg.c:782),
maxaflex (maxaflex.c:541) and hng64 (hng64.c:2189) are GAME_IS_BIOS_ROOT
in mame2010-libretro at source_commit.
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.
The builder keeps a held regional fallback when the requested file is
missing (since 2026-10-17), and the comment beside the manifest's
omissions still said the opposite. A file the builder holds but the
manifest cannot download sat in omitted_files counted unheld, so the
installer kept a fallback the pack drops. Such an omission now carries
held: true and narrow() counts it held, as the builder does.
After --all-variants, --verify-packs printed "hashes checked during the
build" for the platform-only, truth and required-only packs and compared
none of them, so one missing a file its narrowed list requires passed.
Each pack is now held to the platform list narrowed the way it was built:
source and required_only, read from its name, reach the baseline, the
region grouping and the replay of the core extras.
LRPS2 reads pcsx2/resources/GameIndex.yaml through its data directory
and declares no file entry for it, so the truth entry other cores build
named armsx2 and yaps2 alone and hash_conflict missed LRPS2's copy. A
core whose data directory holds a file at an entry's path now folds in
as a reader with the cached copy's hashes, unless the profile lists what
it reads under that tree (yaps2, pcee2).
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.
emulatorLauncher writes a BIOS path into an emulator's configuration
only when the file exists: string x = Path.Combine(bios, "name");
if (File.Exists(x)) ini.WriteValue(section, key, x). The extractor now
records each such write as a fixed_name launcher record, with the
enclosing if and early-return conditions, and a key that receives the
bios folder itself as passes_path. A path reassigned before the check,
or a write under a loop or an else, is not read.
Generators read at 48cdc616: KegaFusion (SCD and 32X keys, GenesisBIOS
given the folder), Jgenesis, MelonDS (DS), Mupen64, Project64, mGBA.
The RetroBat paragraph of the Kega Fusion profile now lives in the
launcher layer.
detect_pinned_tag matched core_version against every view, so an upstream_commit set to the release tag a port was cut from (triforce on Dolphin 2407, dosbox_pure on 1.0-preview7, GroovyMAME on mame0289) froze the whole profile: the port was no longer compared with its HEAD and bump_commit refused. Only the documented build's repository freezes the profile now. An upstream on its tag is self-checked at that tag, is not reported orphaned, and a bump leaves upstream_commit on it.
Abdessamad Derraz