Command-line program to help you retrieve the entries stored in stil
stilview [-b] [-d] [-e entry] [-f field] [-i] [-l HVSC base dir] [-m] [-o] [-s] [-t tune number] stilview {[-h] | [-v]}
STILView is a command-line driven program to help you retrieve the entries stored in STIL fast and accurately. STILView uses the STIL C++ class heavily to do this, and in fact, the primary purpose of this command-line program is to test that class (which is, BTW, used in many GUI-based SID players, most notably in SIDPlay for Windows and XSIDPLAY for Unix systems). However, it is user-friendly enough to be used by non-programmers, too.
I am not sure about what other people do, but I use this command-line STILView primarily as a tool under Solaris 2.6 to print out the STIL information for a SID file I am listening to with the UNIX command-line version of SIDPlay...
Some terms and STIL-related lingo in alphabetical order:
BUG ENTRY - There exists a special file in HVSC (/DOCUMENTS/BUGlist.txt) that lists all known bugs in SID tunes in HVSC. See the top of that file for details about what's in it exactly. A BUG entry is like a STIL entry, but it is contained in this BUGlist.txt file.
FIELD - The smallest piece of information in a STIL entry. Currently valid field names are NAME, TITLE, ARTIST and COMMENT.
FILE-GLOBAL COMMENT - A special COMMENT field in a STIL entry for a multi-tune SID file that refers to the whole SID, not just one tune in it. These usually contain general information about the SID file itself.
Example:
/Hubbard_Rob/Gerry_the_Germ.sid
COMMENT: In Rob's own demo of this music, the tunes are named after the levels
in the original game.
(#1)
TITLE: Lungs
(#2)
TITLE: Kidney
(#7)
TITLE: End
HVSC - High Voltage SID Collection. If you don't know what this is, you downloaded the wrong program. :)
HVSC-RELATIVE PATHNAME - The pathname plus filename of a SID file that can be found in your HVSC, relative to the base directory of HVSC. It is always in UNIX-style format, eg.: /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid refers to Rob Hubbard's Commando.sid file within HVSC (which may actually be found as C:\Music\HVSC\Hubbard_Rob\Commando.sid on your Windows PC).
MULTI-TUNE ENTRY - A STIL entry that is referring to a SID file that has many tunes in it. Each tune might have its own STIL block, which are separated by a so-called tune designation in the form of "(#x)", where x = the tune number. Consult the STIL.FAQ in HVSC for a detailed description.
Example:
/Hubbard_Rob/Gerry_the_Germ.sid
COMMENT: In Rob's own demo of this music, the tunes are named after the levels
in the original game.
(#1)
TITLE: Lungs
(#2)
TITLE: Kidney
(#7)
TITLE: End
SECTION - A part of STIL that belongs to one composer (ie. every STIL entry referring to SID files that are in one subdirectory in HVSC). Sections in STIL are always separated by a line in the form of: "### Composer's name ########".
SECTION-GLOBAL COMMENT - A special STIL entry that refers not to an individual SID file, but to a whole subdirectory. These usually contain info about the composer himself, or about all the SID file he/she ever composed, and are always indexed in the form of "/Subdir/" (note the trailing slash!).
Example:
/Hubbard_Rob/
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
Hubbard's own comments are denoted by (RH).
SINGLE-TUNE ENTRY - A STIL entry that has no tune designation in it in the form of "(#x)", where x is a number. (Note, that a single-tune entry might still refer to a SID file which has many tunes in it, ie. when a single-tune entry has nothing but a COMMENT field in it!)
Example:
/Hubbard_Rob/Chain_Reaction.sid TITLE: Zoolook (remix) [from Zoolook] ARTIST: Jean Michel Jarre
Another example (the SID this is refering to has many tunes in it!):
/Barrett_Steve/Magic_Land_Dizzy.sid COMMENT: Also used in the game "Wacky Darts" (c) 1990 Codemasters.
STIL - SID Tune Information List, essentially a text-file database that can be found in your HVSC in the /DOCUMENTS/ subdirectory.
STIL ENTRY - All of the pieces of information in STIL relating to one SID file of the HVSC. They are always indexed by the HVSC-relative pathname.
TUNE - One of the compositions in a SID. Most SID files have only one tune in them, but many have more than one (eg. one for the title score of the game, and one for the hi-score music).
-b
Do *not* print BUG entries
Default value: Not specified (ie. do print BUG entries) Example: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid -b
When this option is specified, BUG entries will not be printed for the given SID tune. At a minimum, the -e option has to be specified for this option to work.
-d
Default value: Not specified (ie. debug mode is off)
Example: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid -d
Turns on debug mode in STILView. This will result in an extensive output, with the debugging messages going to STDERR. If you encounter any problem or strange behavior with STILView, run STILView with the exact same options as you did when you encountered the problem, with this -d option added to them. Capture the complete output of this run, and send it to me with a detailed explanation of the problem (see email address at the top of this file).
-e=entry
Default: NONE (you have to give an HVSC-relative pathname to this option)
Example #1: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid Example #2: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/
This is where you specify the STIL entry you are looking for, given as an HVSC-relative pathname. If there exists no STIL entry for the given filename, STILView will print out nothing. Otherwise, you'll get the STIL entry (or parts of it, as you may have specified it by other options). HVSC-relative pathnames are case-insensitive, so /HUBBARD_ROB/Commando.sid is the same as /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid.
Example #1 is the most frequent way of retrieving STIL entries, and it will return all of the STIL entry for Commando.sid, as well as the section-global comment for /Hubbard_Rob/. Example #2 is another valid thing to do: this will return only the section-global comment for /Hubbard_Rob/.
-h
Default: NONE Example: stilview -h
Prints a brief help screen listing the available options. All other options that are also specified on the command-line are ignored.
-f=field
Default: all
Valid values for <field> are: all, name, author, title, artist, comment
Example #1: stilview -l -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -f=comment
Example #2: stilview -l -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=1 -f=title
Example #3: stilview -l -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=12 -f=all -s -b
Asks for one particular field in a STIL entry. Combined with the -t option, these two options can retrieve any portion of a STIL entry, including a single field in a specific subtune's entry. Below is full and complete explanation of what the different possible combinations of the -t and -f options retrieve:
-t=0 -f=all : All of the STIL entry is printed.
-t=0 -f=comment : The file-global comment is printed. For single-tune entries that have nothing but a COMMENT field in them, this prints that COMMENT. For single-tune entries that have other fields in them, this prints nothing. (This is because single-tune entries with nothing but a COMMENT field are assumed to be file-global comments.)
-t=0 -f=<name/author/title/artist> : Nothing is printed. This combination of these options is invalid.
-t=<x> -f=all : (Where x is anything but 0.) All fields from the portion of the STIL entry for the given tune number <x> are printed. For single-tune entries, asking for -t=1 -f=all is equivalent to saying -t=0 -f=all, since by definition, the whole entry refers to only one tune. (However, specifying -t with any other number than 1 will print nothing!) Note that if there's a file-global comment in the STIL entry (which also means that if a single-tune entry has nothing but a COMMENT field in it), that is *not* printed with these combinations of options.
-t=<x> -f=<name/author/title/artist/comment> : (Where x is anything but 0.) The specific field from the portion of the STIL entry for the given tune number is printed. For single-tune entries that have nothing but a COMMENT in them, this returns nothing.
Of course, if the STIL entry or any portion of it asked with these options does not exist, STILView will print nothing. Also, unless otherwise specified with the -o, -s and -b options, the section-global comment and the BUG entry of the given SID file will also get printed (provided they exist).
In example #1, the file-global comment for /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid is printed, since -t is not specified and is assumed to be 0. Also printed are the section- global comment and the BUG entry for the same SID file (if they exist). In example #2, the TITLE field of the STIL entry for tune #1 of /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid is printed along with the section-global comment and the BUG entry for the same SID file (if they exist). In example #3, all of the STIL entry for tune #12 of /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid is printed, but nothing else.
-i
Default: NONE
Example: stilview -i
Starts STILView in interactive mode, ignoring all other options specified on the command-line, except -l, -d and -m. In interactive mode, you can look for STIL entries by typing them in. You will get prompted for the desired STIL entry (which has to be specified with an HVSC-relative pathname), for the tune number requested (which should be any non-negative number, but this is not enforced), and finally for the specific STIL field you want to retrieve.
-l=HVSC base dir
Default: The value of the HVSC_BASE environment variable
Example #1: stilview -l=C:\Music\HVSC\ -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid
Example #2: stilview -l=../HVSC/ =-e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid
Example #3: stilview -l -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid
This is where you tell STILView where it can find the HVSC base directory (the path to the directory has to be specified in the form required by your operating system, eg. C:\Music\HVSC under Windows, /home/lala/HVSC under UNIX). STILView will then try to locate the STIL.txt file in the /DOCUMENTS/ subdirectory of that directory. If this option is not specified (or if -l is specified without a base directory), STILView will try to extract the path of the HVSC base directory from the HVSC_BASE environment variable. If that environment variable doesn't exist or is pointing to a location where there's no STIL.txt file in a DOCUMENTS directory, STILView fails. If the HVSC_BASE environment variable exists and is valid, and this option is specified, the directory specified with this option is used as the HVSC base directory instead of the environment variable.
In example #1 the HVSC base directory is located in C:\Music\HVSC\ on the hard drive of a Windows PC, in example #2 it is located in the HVSC directory of the current directory's parent directory of a UNIX system. In example #3 the HVSC base directory is not specified with the option, so it is assumed that the HVSC_BASE environment variable contains the path to it. In reality, specifying the -l option in example #3 is redundant, and can be omitted.
-m
Demo mode
Default: NONE
Example #1: stilview -m
Example #2: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid -m -i
When specified, it prints out a whole bunch of things that a) test most of the functionality of STILView, and b) show what STILView is capable of retrieving from STIL. In example #1, the demo is printed with the STIL info coming from a default STIL entry, then STILView quits. In example #2, the demo is printed taking the STIL info from the specified STIL entry of /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid (instead of the default SID file), then interactive mode is entered.
-o
Do *not* print STIL entries
Default value: Not specified (ie. do print STIL entries)
Example #1: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -o
Example #2: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -o -s
When this option is specified, STIL entries will not be printed for the given SID tune (but section-global entries and BUG entries will be printed, provided they exist and other options did not turn their output off). At a minimum, the -e option has to be specified for this option to work. Example #1 will print out the section-global comment and the BUG entry for /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid, example #2 will print out just the section-global comment for the same SID.
-s
Do *not* print section-global comments
Default value: Not specified (ie. do print section-global entries)
Example: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -s
When this option is specified, section-global entries will not be printed for the given SID tune. At a minimum, the -e option has to be specified for this option to work.
-t=tune number
Default value: 0
Example #1: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid -t=0
Example #2: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=1 -f=title -s -b
Example #3: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=12
Asks for the portion of a STIL entry referring to one particular tune. If tune number 0 is given, it retrieves all of the entry. Combined with the -f option, these two options can retrieve any portion of a STIL entry, including a single field in a specific subtune's entry.
For further details about this option, see the explanation of the -f option.
Example #1 retrieves all of the STIL entry for /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid, including the section-global comment and the BUG entry (if any), but since the default value for this option is 0, it might as well be omitted in this example. Example #2 retrieves only the TITLE field of the first subtune's entry for /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid (and not the section- global comment or the BUG entry), while example #3 retrieves all of the STIL entry for tune #12 of the same SID file (including the section-global comment and the BUG entry, if any).
-v
Print version numbers
Default value: Not specified (ie. do *not* print version numbers)
Example #1: stilview -v
Example #2: stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid -v
When this option is specified, the version number of the STILView program and the version number of the STIL.txt file used by it is printed out. In example #1 this is the only piece of info that gets printed on the screen, in example #2 the version numbers are printed out, then the STIL entry for /Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid is also printed out.
HVSC_BASE
Specifies the location of the HVSC base directory.
All of the examples below assume that the HVSC_BASE environment is set to a valid HVSC base directory (where the $HVSC_BASE/DOCUMENTS/STIL.txt and $HVSC_BASE/DOCUMENTS/BUGlist.txt files exist), and the examples also assume the presence of the following entries in these files:
--- In STIL.txt ---
/Hubbard_Rob/
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
/Hubbard_Rob/Action_Biker.sid
COMMENT: "Action B was a very early game and very conservative in it's approach
- it was my idea of giving them what I thought they wanted, a simple
cute tune....." (RH)
/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid
COMMENT: Tunes #1 and #3 have been converted from arcade version.
/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid
COMMENT: According to Hubbard, Kentilla and Delta were the most complicated one
to compose, they took the longest time to do and they both drove him
insane.
(#1)
TITLE: On the Run [from the Dark Side of the Moon]
ARTIST: Pink Floyd
COMMENT: It is more inspired by it than a remix of it.
(#12)
TITLE: Koyaanisqatsi [from the movie]
ARTIST: Philip Glass
COMMENT: "Inspired by Philip Glass and Pink Floyd." (RH)
/Hubbard_Rob/International_Karate.sid
TITLE: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence [from the movie] (0:42-1:16)
ARTIST: Ryuichi Sakamoto
COMMENT: "[...] I started exploring pentatonic things in B flat minor over
different bass notes, B flat, D flat, G flat and A flat. The middle
section went into F (I think) at double tempo to liven things up. I
was pleased with the tune......" (RH)
/Hubbard_Rob/Rasputin.sid
(#1)
TITLE: Katjusha (0:07-0:36)
ARTIST: Matvei Blanter, M. Isakovski
TITLE: Katjusha (2:20)
ARTIST: Matvei Blanter, M. Isakovski
TITLE: Kaljinka (2:41-2:51)
ARTIST: Traditional
COMMENT: Russian folk song.
TITLE: Kaljinka (3:12-3:22)
ARTIST: Traditional
COMMENT: Russian folk song.
(#2)
COMMENT: Russian folk song.
--- In BUGlist.txt ---
/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid BUG: This is just for demo. /Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid (#12) BUG: Demo entry.
Given these entries, following are the printouts you can expect from STILView. ($> denotes a command-line prompt given by your operating system.)
Everything related to a SID file is printed:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid
---- GLOBAL COMMENT ----
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
------ STIL ENTRY ------
COMMENT: Tunes #1 and #3 have been converted from arcade version.
---------- BUG ----------
BUG: This is just for demo.
$>
Ask for just the section-global comment:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/
/Hubbard_Rob/
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
$>
Note that this can also be retrieved with:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Commando.sid -o -b
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
$>
This prints out nothing, as single-tune entries do not have file-global comments:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/International_Karate.sid -t=0 -f=comment -s -b $>
...Except if the only field in them is a COMMENT (in which case that comment is assumed to be a file-global comment):
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Action_Biker.sid -t=0 -f=comment -s -b
COMMENT: "Action B was a very early game and very conservative in it's approach
- it was my idea of giving them what I thought they wanted, a simple
cute tune....." (RH)
$>
Also note that single-tune entries have only one tune, so asking for the STIL entry of tune #3 is pointless:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/International_Karate.sid -t=3 -s -b $>
Print out the file-global comment for the given SID file:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=0 -f=comment -s -b
COMMENT: According to Hubbard, Kentilla and Delta were the most complicated one
to compose, they took the longest time to do and they both drove him
insane.
$>
Print out the ARTIST field of tune #12 of the given SID file, plus print out everything else related to the SID file:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=12 -f=artist
---- GLOBAL COMMENT ----
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
------ STIL ENTRY ------
ARTIST: Philip Glass
---------- BUG ----------
BUG: Demo entry.
$>
Note that the current version of STILView is capable to retrieve only the first specified field of a tune that covers multiple songs! See below:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Rasputin.sid -t=1 -f=title -s
TITLE: Katjusha (0:07-0:36)
$>
Section-global comments are printed out even if the STIL entry for the given SID file does not exist:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/This_doesnt_exist.sid
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
$>
The following 4 steps depict how to have STILView print out everything related to a given SID file's given tune number one by one:
1) This prints out just the section-global comment:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -o -b
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
$>
2) This prints out just the file-global comment:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=0 -f=comment -s -b
COMMENT: According to Hubbard, Kentilla and Delta were the most complicated one
to compose, they took the longest time to do and they both drove him
insane.
$>
3) This prints out all of the STIL entry for the given tune number:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=12 -f=all -s -b
TITLE: Koyaanisqatsi [from the movie]
ARTIST: Philip Glass
COMMENT: "Inspired by Philip Glass and Pink Floyd." (RH)
$>
4) And this prints out just the BUG entry for the same tune number:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -t=12 -s -o
BUG: Demo entry.
$>
The following 3 steps depict how to have STILView print out everything related to a given SID file:
1) This prints out just the section-global comment:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -o -b
COMMENT: All of these tunes have been confirmed by Hubbard to be his. People
have often stolen Hubbard's routine causing some tunes to be falsely
credited to him.
$>
2) This prints out all of the STIL entry:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -s -b
COMMENT: "[...] The Delta music loader and ingame music was Gary Liddon's idea.
[...] He was the producer at Thalamus at the time. He told Rob Hubbard
to make the ingame music like the 2nd track from Dark Side of the Moon
by Pink Floyd." (Info from Matt Furniss.)
"The small jingles are all small clips from Sanxion and Romeo/Juliet
music. They were all supposed to be for short stingers such as end of
level, extra life etc..."
"Delta was based on this minimalist composition technique inspired by
Glass and a bit of Pink Floyd. It was quite hard too do and required
some custom code to the driver to do it. The music was tedious to
debug. The other Delta stuff was more conventional - I quite liked the
other tunes. Delta was spread over a 2 week period....." (RH)
According to Hubbard, Kentilla and Delta were the most complicated one
to compose, they took the longest time to do and they both drove him
insane.
(#1)
TITLE: On the Run [from the Dark Side of the Moon]
ARTIST: Pink Floyd
COMMENT: It is more inspired by it than a remix of it.
(#12)
TITLE: Koyaanisqatsi [from the movie]
ARTIST: Philip Glass
COMMENT: "Inspired by Philip Glass and Pink Floyd." (RH)
$>
3) And this prints out all of the BUG entry:
$> stilview -e=/Hubbard_Rob/Delta.sid -s -o
(#12)
BUG: Demo entry.
$>
LaLa <[email protected]>
Leandro Nini <[email protected]>