load_datafile_object(3)

✨ load_datafile_object — Allegro manual, bestie edition ✨

okay so this is a page from the Allegro manual, and today we're talking about load_datafile_object(3) — the girlies who only want one little guy out of the whole datafile instead of the entire thing. iconic behavior honestly 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

load_datafile_object — loads a specific object from a datafile. part of the Allegro game programming library 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include <allegro.h>

DATAFILE *load_datafile_object(const char *filename, const char
*objectname);

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so basically it loads one specific object out of a datafile. that's it, that's the whole vibe. main character energy for a single object, we love to see it 👑

but lowkey there are two things that will absolutely ruin your day here:

• this won't work if you strip the object names from the file. no names = no way to find her = she's gone fr fr 😭
• it will be very slow if you save the file with global compression. like, painfully slow. ngl. be warned 🐌

example time, look at her go:

/* Load only the music from the datafile. */
music_object = load_datafile_object("datafile.dat",
                                    "MUSIC");
/* Play it and wait a moment for it. */
play_midi(music_object->dat);
...
/* Destroy unneeded music. */
unload_datafile_object(music_object);

see how she pulled just the music out of "datafile.dat" by its name "MUSIC"? that's the whole point. grab it, play it, unload it, move on. periodt 💅

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🫶 RETURN VALUE 🫶

she returns a pointer to a single DATAFILE element whose dat member points to the actual object. cute right? ✨

BUT — and this is important — she returns NULL if:

• there was an error, or
• there was no object with the requested name 🙈

also bestie, remember to free this DATAFILE later or you'll get a memory leak and nobody wants that 💀 — but use the correct unloading function for it! don't just free it willy-nilly, that's not the move.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• unload_datafile_object(3)
• load_datafile(3)
• set_color_conversion(3)
• find_datafile_object(3)
• register_datafile_object(3)

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and that's the page!! this was Allegro, version 4.4.3, serving load_datafile_object(3) realness 🌸 go load your little object, bestie, you got this 🦋💖✨