textpack(1)						      General Commands Manual						       textpack(1)

NAME

       textpack - Pack and unpack Flex files containing text

SYNOPSIS

       textpack -c FLEXFILE [TEXTFILE]

       textpack -x FLEXFILE [TEXTFILE]

DESCRIPTION

       Text  Flex files are used for the storage of strings by the games Exult supports. While expack(1) can operate on such files, using textpack
       to pack and unpack them is more comfortable.

       The first parameter determines the mode of operation, -c stands for creation, -x for extraction.

   Creation
       TEXTFILE (or stdin if it is missing) is read and must conform to the file format (see below).  FLEXFILE	will  be  created  containing  the
       strings from this input.

   Extraction
       The strings contained in FLEXFILE are extracted and written to TEXTFILE (if given, stdout otherwise) in the file format documented below.

   File Format
       Empty lines, and lines starting with a pound sign (#) are ignored. Other lines must begin with a number, followed by a colon (:).  The num-
       ber is the index of the string and may be given either in decimal, in octal prefixed with 0; or in hexadecimal prefixed with 0x.   Anything
       following the colon belongs to the string and gets stored in the Flex verbatim. Lines are limited in length to 1024 characters.

EXAMPLES

       textpack -x text.flx
	      Writes all the strings contained in text.flx to stdout in the format discussed above.

       textpack -c text.flx strings.list
	      Reads strings.list and puts its contents into the Flex file text.flx

   Example text file
       # An example
       0:the zeroth string
       # strings may be empty
       1:
       # holes are allowed, strings 2 to 16 will be empty
       17:string seventeen
       # 13 hexadecimal == 19 decimal, 24 octal == 20 decimal
       0x13:nineteen
       024:twenty
       # numbers need not go up
       18:eighteen
       # this will overwrite the definition from above
       19:overwritten

AUTHOR

       This manpage was written by Robert Bihlmeyer. It may be freely redistributed and modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License
       version 2 or higher.

SEE ALSO

       expack(1), exult(6)

Exult								    2002-03-24							       textpack(1)