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<font size="+1"><b>The dlm file format specification</b></font>
<p>
The dlm format is the format in which Dilm saves its list files, its a plain text format so it
should be easy to work with even by hand once you learn the syntax. The purpose of this document
though is not to teach you how to edit the dlm file by hand but rather to teach you how the data
is stored so you can make your own programs capable of working with this format.
</p>
<br>
<p>
<b>Stored information:</b><br>
The information stored in the dlm format consists of the following:
<ul>
<li>The title of the list.</li>
<li>The name of the featured distribution.</li>
<li>All the distribution's in the list stored in order.</li>
<li>Notes saved for inclusion at the end of the list.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<br>
<p>
<b>The syntax:</b><br>
The syntax used in the dlm file format is very simple, the very first thing on the line is a
percentage sign <font color="red">%</font> followed by an upper case letter which could be
either a <font color="red">T</font>, <font color="red">M</font>, <font color="red">D</font>
or <font color="red">N</font>. The <font color="red">T</font> indicates that the line
contains the title of the distribution list, the <font color="red">M</font> indicates that
the line contains information on the featured distribution. A <font color="red">D</font>
indicates that this is one of possibly more lines containing data on a distribution entry and
an <font color="red">N</font> indicates that the line contains the notes for the distribution
list, any line that doesn't start with a percentage sign followed by one of the above letters
should be ignored.
</p>
<p>
Lines of data have their values separated by two commas in a row <font color="red">,,</font> ,
there cannot be any space between them. Since double quotes can appear normally in entries
all text that is going to be saved to a file should have spaces inserted between double
commas except where double quotes are going to be used to separate values.
</p>
<p>The title line which starts with <font color="red">%T</font> looks like the example below:
<br><font color="red">%T,,July 2004 distribution list</font><br>
There is only one value and that is the title of the distribution list.
</p>
<p>
The feature line which starts with <font color="red">%M</font> looks like the example below:
<br><font color="red">%M,,Lycoris Desktop/LX,,<a href="http://www.lycoris.org"
target="_blank">http://www.lycoris.org</a>,,... </font><br>
The first value is the Distribution's name, the second value can be in HTML format or can even
be empty, its the source of where the information on the feature was collected from. The third
value is the descritption of that distribution.
</p>
<p>
The distributions lines all start with <font color="red">%D</font> and are stored in order,
an example of what these look like is included below:<br>
<font color="red">%D,,Lycoris Desktop/LX,,http://www.lycoris.com/en/,,1.4,,Aug 16 2004,,http://www.distrowatch.com/</font>
, the firt value is the name of the distribution, the second is that distribution's web site,
the third is the version number of the new release and the fourth is the address of the
article from which the information was gathered.
</p>
<p>
The last line to discuss is the notes line which starts with <font color="red">%N</font>,
this line has only one value like the title line but since notes can span more then one line
all line breaks were converted to <font color="red">//endl//</font>. An example of a notes
line is included below:<br>
<font color="red">%N,,Line 1 //endl// Line 2</font><br>
This line needs no further explaining since the only value is the text that makes up the notes.
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