4.00.8

[sylvia-leaf]

SFe Version 4.00.8 (Draft Specification)

Fixing Some Things

This is the eighth draft milestone of the SFe specification.

This release of the specification doesn't include new features in the format spec. In fact we'll stop mentioning it as there won't be any new features until 4.01.

Introducing the file repair specification

For 4.00.8, we've written a file repair specification for programs that fix SFe banks that are Structurally Unsound. Programs that meet this specification should help bank developers by reducing the amount of time spent fixing problems with files that don't load.

We've included both automatic and manual repair, as well as detailed explanations of each type of error that can happen.

We're looking for feedback for it, so please tell us what should and shouldn't be included in the file repair specification.

An implementation of the file repair specification will happen in the far future. It will likely not be available for version 4.00's final release.

Fixing the format outline

For a long time, the format outline found in section 4 was based on a very old draft of SFe, and was no longer representative of the current state of the specification.

There has already been confusion by some with regard to this format outline, so we've spent some time to update it to be accurate to the current version of the specification.

We've also included the ISFe sub-chunk, but there is currently no information that is defined in this sub-chunk.

Compression issues fixed

Previous versions of the SFe draft specification assumed that the data was uncompressed, which meant that Werner SF3 data was technically not compliant with the SFe spec.

We've now fixed the specification to take into account Werner SF3 compressed data. Now there should not be conflicts between SFe and the August 2021 revision of Werner SF3.

About future plans

We are planning the next few draft milestones of SFe:

• 4.00.9: SFe player reference implementation
• 4.00.10: Feature flags system
• 4.00: Final release, similar to 4.00.10 with problems fixed

Planned rework of section 7.2

We plan on removing the wPreset changes in section 7.2, and instead we would allow users to define what each bit in the wPreset value does.

If removed, then the wPreset changes would be reimplemented in 4.04 with the configuration as a part of the ISFe sub-chunk.

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Full Changelog: 4.00.7...4.00.8

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This discussion was created from the release 4.00.8.