TABLE OF CONTENTS nonvolatile.library/--background-- nonvolatile.library/DeleteNV nonvolatile.library/FreeNVData nonvolatile.library/GetCopyNV nonvolatile.library/GetNVInfo nonvolatile.library/GetNVList nonvolatile.library/SetNVProtection nonvolatile.library/StoreNV nonvolatile.library/--background-- nonvolatile.library/--background-- PURPOSE The nonvolatile library provides a simple means for an application developer to manage nonvolatile storage. OVERVIEW The nonvolatile library is meant to be used transparently across all configurations. Currently, nonvolatile storage may consist of NVRAM and/or disk devices. nonvolatile.library will automatically access the best nonvolatile storage available in the system. Disk based storage will be selected first and if not available, NVRAM storage will be accessed. * NVRAM On low-end diskless Amiga platforms, NVRAM may be available. This RAM will maintain its data contents when the system is powered down. This is regardless of whether batteries or battery-backed clock are present. The data stored in NVRAM is accessible only through the ROM-based nonvolatile library funtion calls. The size of NVRAM storage is dependant on the system platform and is attainable through the GetNVInfo() function. * Disk In keeping with the general configurability of the Amiga, the actual disk location used by nonvolatile library when storing to disk may be changed by the user. The prefs directory is used on the Amiga for storing many user configurable options. The location for nonvolatile disk storage is contained in the file prefs/env-archive/sys/nv_location. This file should contain a data string that specifies a lockable location. If the string does not specify a lockable location, the file will be ignored. When opened, the nonvolatile library will search all drives within the system until it finds this file and successfully accomplishes a Lock on the location specified in the file. To force a rescan of all drives, the library may be closed and reopened or execute the GetNVInfo() function. A simple method for creating a floppy disk for saving nonvolatile data is the following: Format a disk with the volume name NV Create a file prefs/env-archive/sys/nv_location on this disk with the following contents: NV:nonvolatile Create a directory nonvolatile The following is a script file that can be used to make a floppy for use with nonvolatile library: .KEY DRIVE/A,DISK .BRA { .KET } format Drive {DRIVE} Name {DISK$NV} noicons ffs makedir {DRIVE}prefs makedir {DRIVE}nonvolatile makedir {DRIVE}prefs/env-archive makedir {DRIVE}prefs/env-archive/sys echo {DISK$NV}:nonvolatile >{DRIVE}prefs/env-archive/sys/nv_location !!!NOTE!!! Because NVRAM performs disk access, you must open and use its functionality from a DOS process, not an EXEC task. Normally your CDGS application is invoked as a DOS process so this requirement generally should cause you no concern. You just need to be aware of this requirement should you create an EXEC task and try to invoke nonvolatile.library from that task. nonvolatile.library/DeleteNV nonvolatile.library/DeleteNV NAME DeleteNV -- remove an entry from nonvoltatile storage. (V40) SYNOPSIS success = DeleteNV(appName, itemName, killRequesters); D0 A0 A1 D1 BOOL DeleteNV(STRPTR, STRPTR, BOOL); FUNCTION Searches the nonvolatile storage for the indicated entry and removes it. The strings appName and itemName may not contain the '/' or ':' characters. It is recommended that these characters be blocked from user input when requesting AppName and ItemName strings. INPUTS appName - NULL terminated string identifing the application that created the data. Maximum length is 31. ItemName - NULL terminated string uniquely identifing the data within the application. Maximum length is 31. killRequesters - suppress system requesters flag. TRUE if all system requesters are to be suppressed during this function. FALSE if system requesters are allowed. RESULT success - TRUE will be returned if the entry is found and deleted. If the entry is not found, FALSE will be returned. nonvolatile.library/FreeNVData nonvolatile.library/FreeNVData NAME FreeNVData -- release the memory allocated by a function of this library. (V40) SYNOPSIS FreeNVData(data); A0 VOID FreeNVData(APTR); FUNCTION Frees a block of memory that was allocated by any of the following: GetCopyNV(), GetNVInfo(), GetNVList(). INPUTS data - pointer to the memory block to be freed. If passed NULL, this function does nothing. SEE ALSO GetCopyNV(), GetNVInfo(), GetNVList() nonvolatile.library/GetCopyNV nonvolatile.library/GetCopyNV NAME GetCopyNV -- return a copy of an item stored in nonvolatile storage. (V40) SYNOPSIS data = GetCopyNV(appName, itemName, killRequesters); D0 A0 A1 D1 APTR GetCopyNV(STRPTR, STRPTR, BOOL); FUNCTION Searches the nonvolatile storage for the indicated appName and itemName. A pointer to a copy of this data will be returned. The strings appName and itemName may not contain the '/' or ':' characters. It is recommended that these characters be blocked from user input when requesting appName and itemName strings. INPUTS appName - NULL terminated string indicating the application name to be found. Maximum length is 31. itemName - NULL terminated string indicated the item within the application to be found. Maximum length is 31. killRequesters - Suppress system requesters flag. TRUE if all system requesters are to be suppressed during this function. FALSE if system requesters are allowed. RESULT data - pointer to a copy of the data found in the nonvolatile storage assocated with appName and itemName. NULL will be returned if there is insufficient memory or the appName/itemName does not exist. SEE ALSO FreeNVData(), nonvolatile.library/GetNVInfo nonvolatile.library/GetNVInfo NAME GetNVInfo -- report information on the current nonvolatile storage. (V40) SYNOPSIS information = GetNVInfo(killRequesters); D0 D1 struct NVInfo *GetNVInfo(BOOL); FUNCTION Finds the user's preferred nonvolatile device and reports information about it. INPUTS killRequesters - suppress system requesters flag. TRUE if all system requesters are to be suppressed during this function. FALSE if system requesters are allowed. RESULT information - pointer to an NVInfo structure. This structure contains information on the NV storage media with the largest storage. The structure contains 2 longword fields: nvi_MaxStorage and nvi_FreeStorage. Both values are rounded down to the nearest ten. The nvi_MaxStorage field is defined as the total amount of nonvolatile storage available on this device. The nvi_FreeStorage is defined as the amount of available space for NVDISK or the amount of non-locked storage for NVRAM. For NVDISK, the nvi_FreeStorage takes into account the amount of overhead room required to store a new App/Item. This amount is 3 blocks to allow room for storing a new Item file and possibly a new App directory. For NVRAM, the amount of overhead is 5 bytes. However, the amount of room required to store a new NVRAM item depends on the length of the App and Item names. Refer to StoreNV() function for storage details. This function may return NULL in the case of failure. SEE ALSO FreeNVData(), StoreNV(), nonvolatile.library/GetNVList nonvolatile.library/GetNVList NAME GetNVList -- return a list of the items stored in nonvolatile storage. (V40) SYNOPSIS list = GetNVList(appName, killRequesters); D0 A0 D1 struct MinList *GetNVList(STRPTR, BOOL); FUNCTION Returns a pointer to an Exec list of nonvolatile Items associated with the appName requested. The string appName may not contain the '/' or ':' characters. It is recommended that these characters be blocked from user input when requesting an appName string. INPUTS appName - NULL terminated string indicating the application name to be matched. Maximum length is 31. killRequesters - Suppress system requesters flag. TRUE if all system requesters are to be suppressed during this function. FALSE if system requesters are allowed. RESULT list - a pointer to an Exec MinList of NVEntries. A NULL will be returned if there is insufficient memory. If there are no entries in the nonvolatile storage for the AppName, an empty list will be returned. NOTE The protection field contains more bits than are required for storing the delete protection status. These bits are reserved for other system usage and may not be zero. When checking for the delete status use either the field mask NVIF_DELETE, or the bit definition NVIB_DELETE. SEE ALSO FreeNVData(), SetNVProtection() nonvolatile.library/SetNVProtection nonvolatile.library/SetNVProtection NAME SetNVProtection -- set the protection flags. (V40) SYNOPSIS success = SetNVProtection(appName, itemName, mask, killRequesters); D0 A0 A1 D2 D1 BOOL SetNVProtection(STRPTR, STRPTR, LONG, BOOL); FUNCTION Sets the protection attributes for an item currently in the nonvolatile storage. Although 'mask' is LONG only the delete bit, NVEF_DELETE/NVEB_DELETE, may be set. If any other bits are set this function will return FALSE. The strings appName and itemName may not contain the '/' or ':' characters. It is recommended that these characters be blocked from user input when requesting AppName and ItemName strings. INPUTS appName - NULL terminated string indicating the application name to be matched. Maximum length is 31. itemName - NULL terminated string indicated the item within the application to be found. Maximum length is 31. mask - the new protection mask. Only set the delete bit otherwise this function WILL CRASH. killRequesters - suppress system requesters flag. TRUE if all system requesters are to be suppressed during this function. FALSE if system requesters are allowed. RESULT success - FALSE if the protection could not be change (ie the data does not exist). SEE ALSO GetNVList(), nonvolatile.library/StoreNV nonvolatile.library/StoreNV NAME StoreNV -- store data in nonvolatile storage. (V40) SYNOPSIS error = StoreNV(appName, itemName, data, length, killRequesters); D0 A0 A1 A2 D0 D1 UWORD StoreNV(STRPTR, STRPTR, APTR, ULONG, BOOL); FUNCTION Saves some data in nonvolatile storage. The data is tagged with AppName and ItemName so it can be retrieved later. No single item should be larger than one fourth of the maximum storage as returned by GetNVInfo(). There is no data compression associated with this function. The strings, AppName and ItemName, should be short, but descriptive. They need to be short since the string is stored with the data and the nonvolatile storage for a stand alone game system is limited. The game system allows the user to selectively remove entries from storage, so the string should be desriptive. The strings AppName and ItemName may not contain the '/' or ':' characters. It is recommended that these characters be blocked from user input when requesting AppName and ItemName strings. INPUTS appName - NULL terminated string identifying the application creating the data. Maximum length is 31. itemName - NULL terminated string uniquely identifying the data within the application. Maximum length is 31. data - pointer to the memory block to be stored. length - number of bytes to be stored in the units of tens of bytes. For example, if you have 23 bytes to store length = 3; 147 byte then length = 15. killRequesters - suppress system requesters flag. TRUE if all system requesters are to be suppressed during this function. FALSE if system requesters are allowed. RESULT error - 0 means no error, NVERR_BADNAME error in AppName, or ItemName. NVERR_WRITEPROT Nonvolatile storage is read only. NVERR_FAIL Failure in writing data (nonvolatile storage full, or write protected). NVERR_FATAL Fatal error when accessing nonvolatile storage, possible loss of previously saved nonvolatile data. SEE ALSO GetCopyNV(), GetNVInfo() .