packfile_password(3)

💖 packfile_password(3) — the Allegro manual's glow-up edition

okay bestie so this is packfile_password, and it's part of the Allegro game programming library's manual pages. yes it's a real Unix manpage. yes it's about locking your data DOWN. let's get into it 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <allegro.h>

void packfile_password(const char *password);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so picture this: you want all your read/write operations on files to be encrypted. this function sets the global encryption password that gets used for every file you open in the future using Allegro's packfile functions — and yes, that means whether they're compressed or not, bestie, no escape. it also covers all the save, load and config routines. everything. the whole vibe. 💅

and here's the part where you need to listen: files written with an encryption password cannot be read unless the same password is selected. so be careful, fr fr — if you forget the key, nobody can make your data come back again! not you, not me, not the Allegro devs, not a prayer circle. it's gone. periodt. 😭

want out? pass NULL or an empty string to go back to the normal, non-encrypted mode. easy peasy. 🦋

and if you're using this function to stop people from getting access to your datafiles — cute — just be careful not to store an obvious copy of the password in your executable. like, if there are any strings like "I'm the password for the datafile" just chillin' in your binary, it would be fairly easy for someone to get access to your data :-) not me snitching but like. girl. 🙈

Note #1 💖 — when you're writing a packfile, you can change the password to whatever you want after opening the file, without affecting the write operation. no drama. but when you're writing a sub-chunk of a packfile, you must make sure that the password that was active at the time the sub-chunk was opened is still active before closing the sub-chunk. and this is guaranteed to be true if you didn't call the packfile_password() routine in the meantime. read operations, on packfiles or sub-chunks, have no such restriction — they're free spirits. 🧚

Note #2 💜 — as explained above, the password is used for all read/write operations on files, including for several functions of the library that operate on files without explicitly using packfiles (e.g. load_bitmap()). and the unencrypted mode is mandatory in order for those functions to work. so remember to call packfile_password(NULL) before using them if you previously changed the password. as a rule of thumb: always call packfile_password(NULL) when you are done with operations on packfiles. the only exception to this is custom packfiles created with pack_fopen_vtable(). 👑

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• pack_fopen(3)
• load_datafile(3)
• pack_fopen_vtable(3)

okay that's the whole page, you ate it, you understood it, I'm obsessed with you. 🌈⭐ this was the packfile_password(3) page from the Allegro manual, version 4.4.3. go forth and encrypt responsibly, bestie, and don't lose that key 💖🎀🫶