xml2info.exe sortinfo.exe help please?

[spystyle]

I am having trouble using xml2info.exe from MAME 0.98 with the gamelist.xml generated by MAME32 0.97.

I couldn't figure out the "version" switch for the command line, which makes it backwards compatible.

Please correct this batch file:

MAME32 -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info [-97] < gamelist.xml > gamelist.txt
del gamelist.xml

Thank you,
Craig

[Howard_Casto]

Lol probably because you are confused. 


The ">"  is  an old dos command to save the screen output to a file.  It's used to generate any mame file.  It really has nothing to do with the special xml2info tag because you have to use it in any situation.


What you want is:

-listxml|xml2info >listinfo.txt


This is how you do it in command line mame (which you should be using).  It's done at the time of generation, not after the fact.  I have no clue how to do it in mame32.  The last time I checked mame32 didn't really output reports properly anyway. 

[spystyle]

Curses!

The results are the same, I end up with a listinfo.txt that dosen't work properly with sortinfo.exe...

Any ideas why I can't use the listinfo.txt file with sortinfo?

I thought the solution was in the [-version] switch in xml2info.exe command line.

I am using MAME .98 to create a listinfo for my .97 roms, therefore I thought the version switch should be used.

What is the version switch used for?

[Howard_Casto]

you don't run xml2info directly, you understand that right?

You run mame.exe -listxml|xml2info >listinfo.txt


That probably won't work anyway.  The Sortinfo program is old and busted. It's a luck of the draw if it works from one version of mame to the next.

[spystyle]

I run the command as you wrote (see attachment 1) but the listinfo.txt file produced does not work in sortinfo (see attachment 2)

I don't know how to sort ROMs in any version of MAME past .84 because sortinfo is not compatible... Yet I've been told by JoyMonkey that with xml2info it can be done, but I was unable to contact him.

What do you guys use to sort your ROMs in versions of MAME past .84?

[Howard_Casto]

We don't. 


Modern fe's let you make lists based on filters.  The physical location of the roms has nothing to do with how the lists are arranged in the fe. 

[spystyle]

I see,

I'm more into the building aspect than the software really, I haven't studied the software much and didn't realise no one was sorting their ROMs...

Is there an FE that sorts as well as sortinfo.exe?

Is there an FE that will, for example:

hide horizontal games
hide clones
only display games with 1,2,3, or 4 buttons
only display games with 2,4, or 8-way joystick

Thank you,
Craig

[Minwah]

Is there an FE that will, for example:

hide horizontal games
hide clones
only display games with 1,2,3, or 4 buttons
only display games with 2,4, or 8-way joystick

Yes, many.  My FE cannot currently filter on # buttons, but can do all the rest.  I'm sure Dragon King & Kymaera can filter on buttons too, along with a number of other FE's i'm sure.

Basically, as HC said there is no need to sort your roms.  Just use a FE and filtered lists.

[JoyMonkey]

I've always used xml2info in two steps. 1) create the xml file. 2) use xml2info to convert it to a listinfo.

Using the usual Mame binary (not DOS Mame, though it might work);
At the command prompt type:
mame -listxml > blahblah.xml

Then type:
xml2info < blahblah.xml > blahblah.lst

Then you can import blahblah.lst into SortInfo as a ListInfo file.
I just tested this with Mame 0.95 and it works fine.

[Howard_Casto]

While we are on the subject.......

Would anyone be interested in a command line tag in johnny5 to autoparse some of a game's data?

See to figure out the lof filters for j5 (if you don't know what that is don't worry, it's not relevant to this conversation)  I take all the data from a game's entry and merge it into a big-old string I can use to search for keywords.  The string contains all the controls used in the game minus the captions.  I thought it might be useful to be able to launch j5 with a "-getinfo" command and have it spit back soem relevant data, minus captions.  I could even output stuff like the play mode, number of REAL buttons, ect....

I never planned on doing this, the idea was for sirp and I to make the dat and have the users make filtering utilities that use it's data, but I haven't seen any real use of that yet. 

[spystyle]

Super cool!

JoyMonkey, that worked and you are my hero

This is the batch file I use with MAME beyond .84:

mame32 -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info < gamelist.xml > gamelist.lst
del gamelist.xml

and to open them with sortinfo.exe I used "import" not "open"

I tested it on 3 versions: 85, 95, and 97. All worked perfectly.

And for versions before .84 I use:

MAME32 -listinfo > gamelist.txt

and it works perfectly too, using "import" but not "open"

Life is good.

I appreciate being able to sort the ROMs before putting them on the cabinet, it seems more organized and saves disk space. Not to mention it is good for people who want to run MAME32 on their cabinet.

Also, in a test, MAME32 .97's gamelist.xml was converted to gamelist.lst by MAME .85's xml2info.exe.

Then the gamelist.lst was imported to sortinfo.exe sucessfully.

This is evidence that there is no need to match versions and that it can be done with MAME32.

Thank you!
Craig