debian man page for create_datafile_index

create_datafile_index(3alleg4)					  Allegro manual				    create_datafile_index(3alleg4)

NAME
       create_datafile_index - Creates an index for a datafile. Allegro game programming library.

SYNOPSIS
       #include <allegro.h>

       DATAFILE_INDEX *create_datafile_index(const char *filename);

DESCRIPTION
       Creates	an  index  for	a datafile, to speed up loading single objects out of it. This is mostly useful for big datafiles, which you don't
       want to load as a whole. The index will store the offset of all objects inside the  datafile,  and  then  you  can  load  it  quickly  with
       "load_datafile_object_indexed" later.  Use destroy_datafile_index to free the memory used by it again.

       Note:  If  the  datafile  uses  global  compression,  there is no performance gain from using an index, because seeking to the offset still
       requires to uncompress the whole datafile up to that offset.  Example:

	  DATAFILE_INDEX *index = create_datafile_index("huge.dat");
	  DATAFILE *object = load_datafile_object_indexed(index, 1234);
	  ...
	  unload_datafile_object(object);
	  destroy_datafile_index(index);

RETURN VALUE
       A pointer value which you can pass to load_datafile_object_indexed.

SEE ALSO
       destroy_datafile_index(3alleg4), load_datafile_object_indexed(3alleg4)

Allegro 							   version 4.4.2				    create_datafile_index(3alleg4)