lib8svx is a portable parser library built on top of libiff, for 8SVX files containing digitally sampled audio voices consisting of 8-bit samples. The 8SVX file format is frequently used on the Commodore Amiga. This library offers the following features:

• Reading 8SVX files
• Programmatically creating 8SVX files
• Retrieving 8SVX file contents
• Writing 8SVX files
• 8SVX conformance checking
• Fibonacci delta compression of 8SVX files

This parser library implements support for all chunks described in the 8SVX specification, which can be found in: doc/8SVX.doc included in this package.

In order to build and use this package, the following libraries are required:

• libiff, in order to parse IFF files

Compilation and installation of this library on Unix-like systems is straight forward, by using the standard GNU autotools build instructions:

$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

More details about the installation process can be found in the INSTALL file included in this package.

This package can also be built with Visual C++ for Windows platforms. The solution file resides in src/lib8svx.sln that can be opened in Visual Studio to edit or build it. Alternatively, you can also use MSBuild to compile it:

$ MSBuild lib8svx.sln

To make any builds work you must have built libiff first. By default, the project file looks for the libiff folder that resides in the parent directory of the current solution.

You can also specify the location of the libiff includes and libiff libraries through property parameters:

$ MSBuild /p:libiffIncludePath:..\..\..\libiff\src /p:libiffLibPath:..\..\..\libiff\src\Debug lib8svx.sln

The output is produced in the Debug/ directory.

Because this package is implemented in ANSI C (with the small exception that the command line utilities use getopt() ), it should be fairly easy to port this package to new platforms. So far it has been tested on the following platforms:

• Linux (i686-linux, x86_64-linux) using GCC
• Cygwin (i686-cygwin, x86_64-cygwin) using GCC
• AmigaOS (m68k-amigaos) using EGCS through Geek Gadgets
• Windows (i686-windows) using Visual C++ 2013

This library is available under the MIT license

The 8SVX parser provdes a convenient interface which can be used to create, read, write and check 8SVX files. Full API documentation can be found in the doc/apidox directory of this package.

To read a 8SVX file, call the _8SVX_read() function. An IFF file may contain multiple 8SVX instruments (however most IFF files represent a single 8SVX file). The _8SVX_extractInstruments() function extracts all the 8SVX instruments from an IFF file and returns an array of _8SVX_Instrument struct instances, which can be used to convienently access its properties. The length of the array is stored in the instrumentsLength variable:

#include <lib8svx/8svx.h>
#include <lib8svx/8svxinstrument.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    unsigned int instrumentsLength;
    IFF_Chunk *chunk = _8SVX_read("input.8SVX");
    _8SVX_Instrument **instrument = _8SVX_extractInstruments(chunk, &instrumentsLength);
    
    /* Retrieve an instrument from the array and access its properties here */
    
    return 0;
}

An 8SVX file can be created by creating an instance of an _8SVX_Instrument struct and by setting its sub chunks. The following example defines a 8SVX instrument with a voice 8 header chunk:

#include <lib8svx/8svxinstrument.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    _8SVX_Instrument *instrument = _8SVX_createInstrument();
    
    _8SVX_Voice8Header *voice8Header = _8SVX_createVoice8Header();
    
    /* Create voice 8 header properties */
    
    voice8Header->oneShotHiSamples = SAMPLE_LENGTH;
    voice8Header->repeatHiSamples = 0;
    voice8Header->samplesPerHiCycle = 0;
    voice8Header->samplesPerSec = SAMPLE_LENGTH;
    voice8Header->ctOctave = 1;
    voice8Header->sCompression = _8SVX_CMP_NONE;
    voice8Header->volume = _8SVX_MAX_VOLUME;
    
    /* Attach voice 8 header to the instrument */
    instrument->voice8Header = voice8Header;
    
    return 0;
}

To retrieve properties of 8SVX instruments inside an IFF file, you must take all possible 8SVX FORMs into account, which can be retrieved through the _8SVX_extractInstruments() function. By iterating over the resulting array, you can retrieve the 8SVX instrument properties by accessing members of each individual _8SVX_Instrument struct instance.

Since 8SVX instruments may have multiple octaves, the _8SVX_extractSamples() function can be used to retrieve to address them in a convenient manner.

#include <lib8svx/8svxinstrument.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    _8SVX_Instrument **instruments;
    unsigned int i, instrumentsLength, samplesLength;
    _8SVX_Sample *samples;
    
    /* Open and extract 8SVX instruments here */
    
    for(i = 0; i < instrumentsLength; i++)
    {
        _8SVX_Instrument *instrument = instruments[i];
        _8SVX_Voice8Header *voice8Header = instrument->voice8Header; /* Struct representing voice 8 header properties */
        _8SVX_Copyright *copyright = instrument->copyright; /* Struct containing copyright information */
        _8SVX_Body *body = instrument->body; /* Body chunk containing compressed or uncompressed sample data */
        
        /* Retrieve more properties here */
        
        samples = _8SVX_extractSamples(instrument, &samplesLength); /* Extract samples for each instrument octave */
    }
    
    return 0;
}

To write an _8SVX_Instrument struct instance to a file, it must first be converted to an IFF FORM using the _8SVX_convertInstrumentToForm() function. Then the resulting FORM can written to disk using the _8SVX_write() function.

#include <lib8svx/8svxinstrument.h>
#include <lib8svx/8svx.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    _8SVX_Instrument *instrument;
    IFF_Form *form;
    
    /* Create a 8SVX instrument here */
    
    form = _8SVX_convertInstrumentToForm(instrument);
    
    if(_8SVX_write("output.8SVX", (IFF_Chunk*)form))
        return 0; /* File has been successfully written */
    else
        return 1; /* Writing failed */
}

Typically when opening an IFF file containing 8SVX instruments, you want to check whether the file is valid. This can be done by invoking the _8SVX_checkInstruments() function, which checks whether the IFF file is valid and it checks whether are required 8SVX chunks are present.

#include <lib8svx/8svxinstrument.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    IFF_Chunk *chunk;
    _8SVX_Instrument **instruments;
    unsigned int instrumentsLength;

    /* Open an IFF file and extract 8SVX instruments here */

    if(_8SVX_checkInstruments(chunks, instruments, instrumentsLength))
        return 0; /* IFF file including 8SVX instruments are valid */
    else
        return 1; /* IFF file including 8SVX instruments are not valid */
}

Optionally, 8SVX files can be compressed using the Fibonacci delta compression method, which reduces the size of the samples by 50% at some loss of quality. A body of an instrument can be compressed by invoking the _8SVX_packFibonacciDelta() function. Uncompression can be done by invoking the _8SVX_unpackFibonacciDelta() function.

#include <lib8svx/8svxinstrument.h>
#include <lib8svx/fibdelta.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    _8SVX_Instrument *instrument;
    
    /* Create or open a 8SVX file here */
    
    _8SVX_packFibonacciDelta(instrument); /* Instrument body is now fibonacci delta compressed */
    _8SVX_unpackFibonacciDelta(instrument); /* Instrument body is now uncompressed */
    
    return 0;
}

Apart from an API to handle 8SVX files, this package also includes a number of command-line utilities to make usage of 8SVX files more convenient:

• 8svxpp can be used to pretty print a 8SVX file into a textual representation, so that it can be manually inspected
• 8svxpack can be used to compress or decompress all 8SVX instruments in an IFF file.

Consult the manual pages of these tools for more information.