quick-and-dirty bash script to get only parent ROMs *from your existent romset*

[meleu]

A friend of mine knows that I like to code bash scripts and said: "Hey, why don't you make a script to delete the clones from my MAME romset?". I talked about all the romset management tools available on the web but, DAMN!, I love to code! And then I wrote a script to make it.

Actually the script doesn't delete any file. It only copy from your existent romset those which has no parent and aren't flagged as having some issue in its status. The info about the roms are taken from the lr-fba-next game list.

The code is not very polished, I didn't made it to be widely used. But, as we have some guys here who like to learn shell script tricks, I put some comments for them. Feel free to ask about something you don't understand. And if you have some cool trick to share with me, I would be happy to know it. :-)

You can directly download the code using:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/share/master/noclones_fba-next.sh

Usage: noclones_fba-next.sh /path/to/original/romset /noclone/romset/destination

#!/bin/bash
# noclones_fba-next.sh
#########################
#
# This script was made to get, **from your existent romset**, only the ROMs
# that are working and are NOT clones.
#
# Usage: noclones_fba-next.sh /path/to/original/romset /noclone/romset/destination
#
# How the script does it:
# - get the game list (txt file) from libretro fba repository.
# - make another list from the original game list, excluding the clones 
#   (ROMs that has a parent ROM) and the ROMs with a "not OK" flag.
# - from this new list (with good ROMs), copy those that you have in your
#   existing romset and copy to another directory.
#
# I'm pretty sure that clrmamepro and other romset managing tools do a better
# job, but I love to code! :D

gamelist_url="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/libretro-fba/master/gamelist.txt"
gamelist="/tmp/lr-fba-next_gamelist.txt"
noclone_list=$(mktemp /tmp/noclonelist.XXXX)

romset_dir="$1"
noclone_romset_dir="$2"

# the path to romsets are mandatory
if [[ -z "$romset_dir" || -z "$2" ]]; then
    echo 'missing argument!' >&2
    echo "usage: $(basename $0) /path/to/original/romset /noclone/romset/destination" >&2
    exit 1
fi

# creating the noclones destination directory
mkdir -p "$noclone_romset_dir"

# checking the directories
for dir in "$romset_dir" "$noclone_romset_dir"; do
    if ! [[ -d "$dir" ]]; then
        echo "invalid directory: $dir" >&2
        exit 1
    fi
done

# get the game list from the libretro-fba repository
if ! [[ -s "$gamelist" ]]; then
    if ! wget -O "$gamelist" "$gamelist_url"; then
        echo "failed to get the remote gamelist.txt" >&2
        exit 1
    fi
fi

# excluding the header info and getting the game list table only
sed -i '/^\+-----/,/^\+-----/!d' "$gamelist"

# delete the first and the last line of the table (those "-------" strings).
sed -i '1d;$d' "$gamelist"

# reading the gamelist.txt line by line
while read -r line; do
    # using '|' as the field separator
    oldIFS="$IFS"
    IFS='|'
    content=( $line )
    IFS="$oldIFS"

    rom="${content[1]}"
    rom_status="${content[2]}"
    parent="${content[4]}"

    # X = eXcluded from build; D = included in Debug build only; NW = Not Working
    if [[ "$rom_status" =~ X|D|NW ]]; then
        echo "Ignoring $rom - Reason: status not OK." >&2
        continue
    fi
    
    # if it has a parent then it's a clone
    if ! [[ "$parent" =~ ^[[:blank:]]*$ ]]; then
        echo "Ignoring $rom - Reason: clone." >&2
        continue
    fi

    # if the script reaches this point, the rom is working and is not a clone

    # the sed trick below is to delete the leading/trailing spaces/tabs
    rom=$(echo $rom | sed -e 's/^[[:blank:]]*//; s/[[:blank:]]*$//').zip

    # create a list of the roms that we want and exist in the original romset
    if [[ -f "$romset_dir/$rom" ]]; then
        echo "$romset_dir/$rom" >> "$noclone_list"
    fi
done < "$gamelist"


# checking if the noclone rom list has something
if ! [[ -s "$noclone_list" ]]; then
    echo "There's no ROM to copy!" >&2
    exit 1
fi

echo "The list of working/noclone roms is ready!"
echo "Starting the copy..."

# copying the roms that we want to the destination dir
while read -r rom; do
    echo -n "Copying: "
    cp -v "$rom" "$noclone_romset_dir"
done < "$noclone_list"

# removing temp files
rm -f "$gamelist" "$noclone_list"

echo "Done!"
echo -n "Your new romset has $(ls -1 "$noclone_romset_dir" | wc -l) files "
echo "and takes $(du -hs "$noclone_romset_dir" | cut -f1) of your drive."

[suprjami]

I recently did a similar thing to make parent DAT files for the CPS and MVS emulators for PSP.

I just used a DAT file and awk to pull out all parent defintions like:

awk '/cps2\.c">/,/\/game/' MAME120.dat > cps2-parents.dat

[finaluser]

Port to macos
Get the script with the following command:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/share/master/noclones_fba-next.sh --output noclones_fba-next.sh

on script replace the line 47:

if ! wget -O "$gamelist" "$gamelist_url"; then

by:

if ! curl "$gamelist_url" --output "$gamelist"; then