In the Empire game, there are a number of files needed to run the game. Apart from Empire.exe and six SDL/ttf dlls, there are three gifs, a couple of .txt files and a .ttf font. For now I'll leave the dlls but the remaining files I'd like to package all these files up into one big compressed file.
Does anyone know if there are any open source apps for creating a resource file this way, and a C (or C++) library to call to extract the information? If not I guess I'll have to write one for the next tutorial.
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What about using a .zip file? Doing so may allow the benefits of both a single resource file and compression. Although I don’t have any personal experience or knowlege of a zip API, you might find something helpful via:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4296918/how-to-extract-zip-file-in-c-sharp
Or, perhaps:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/876626/windows-api-to-extract-zip-files
Take a look at PhysicsFS
http://www.icculus.org/physfs/
I think it may be what you are looking for. It is licensed under zlib license.
Try PhysicsFS
http://www.icculus.org/physfs/
If you mean “read-only” or “most of the time read-only” data by resource file, and don’t need a full blown vfs, use a zip file. The file format is quite easy to learn and expand (If you need to break compability). And with the help of ZLIB (And unless my memory fails me) it took me about 3-4 days to write a zip reader/writer from scratch. I did not support all features of course but it can read any zip file i throw at it.
I found a link to this ZIP right here on cplus.about
http://zipstorer.codeplex.com/