find_allegro_resource(3alleg4)

💖 find_allegro_resource 💖

okay bestie, this one is from the Allegro manual and it's literally a little treasure hunt for your game's support files. she's a function from the Allegro game programming library and she goes by the full glow-up name find_allegro_resource(3alleg4) ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

find_allegro_resource — Searches for a support file in many places. Allegro game programming library. 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <allegro.h>

int find_allegro_resource(char *dest, const char *resource, const char *ext,
                          const char *datafile, const char *objectname,
                          const char *envvar, const char *subdir, int size);

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So basically she's out here hunting down a support file for you, like allegro.cfg or language.dat. 🕵️‍♀️💅

You hand her a resource string describing what you're looking for, plus a lil pile of extra optional info: the default ext, which datafile to peek inside, what the datafile objectname is probably gonna be, any special envvar to check, and any subdir you want her to check on top of the default location. And then?? she looks in a hell of a lot of different places :-). It's giving main character energy fr fr.

For any of those params you're not using, just pass NULL. She doesn't mind. 🫶

💡 Heads up bestie: check the documentation chapter specific to your platform for info on the extra paths she might search. Also, do not forget about set_allegro_resource_path() if you wanna extend the searches! 🌈

Example time, slay:

char path[256];
int ret;
ret = find_allegro_resource(path, "scores.cfg", NULL, NULL,
                            NULL, NULL, NULL, sizeof(path));
if (ret == 0) {
   /* Found system wide scores file. */
} else {
   /* No previous scores, create our own file. */
}

👑 RETURN VALUE 👑

She returns zero on success, and stores a full path to the file into the dest buffer — at most size bytes, so don't be greedy with your buffer, okay? 😭🌸

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• set_allegro_resource_path(3alleg4)

that's the whole page, no cap 🧚💖 mwah, go find your files bestie, you got this 💅✨

with love from the Allegro crew — version 4.4.3, and yeah that's the find_allegro_resource(3alleg4) page, periodt 🎀🦋