narc

An implementation of the Nitro Archive (NARC) virtual file system used by the Nintendo DS.

This repository provides two code modules:

1. A library implementation of the NARC file specification. This module can be compiled as a shared library and linked against other projects which require interactivity with NARCs.
2. A CLI, which builds upon the included library to provide a simple program for creating NARCs, extracting files from existing NARCs, and viewing metadata about existing NARCs.

Table of Contents

• Install
• Usage
• API
• Acknowledgements
• Contributing
• License

Install

Install from Source

A Makefile is provided for convenience, which will build both a shareable library libnarc and a static executable. After acquiring a copy of the source -- via git or a tar archive -- cd into the source folder and run:

sudo make install

By default:

1. libnarc.so will be installed to ~/.local/lib
2. narc will be installed to ~/.local/bin

If you wish to change the parent directory of these destinations, specify that parent via DESTDIR ahead of the make command, e.g.:

# This will install `libnarc.so` to `/usr/local/lib` and `narc` to
# `/usr/local/bin`.
DESTDIR=/usr/local sudo make install

Integrate via Meson

A meson.build file is also provided for integrating narc as a subproject. To add narc to your project, create the file subprojects/narc.wrap with the following content:

[wrap-git]
url = https://github.com/lhearachel/narc.git
; Replace <main> here with a release tag or commit hash, if desired.
revision = main
depth = 1

[provide]
program_names = narc
dependency_names = libnarc

CLI Usage

narc ships with rich documentation via its help-text:

narc - create, extract, and explore Nitro Archive virtual filesystems

Usage: narc [-h | --help] [-v | --version] [command] [arguments]

Commands:
  c, create    Create a NARC from a folder of physical files
  x, extract   Extract virtual files from the NARC to a folder
  y, yank      Yank individual files from the NARC to disk
  i, info      Print metadata for a NARC
  h, help      Print help-text for a particular command

For brevity, individual commands will not be explained in detail here; refer to the help-text for individual commands as needed after installation.

Library API

The meat of narc is in the libnarc API. After installation, a calling program should have access to the following files in their library include path:

#include <narc/api/check.h>
#include <narc/api/dump.h>
#include <narc/api/error.h>
#include <narc/api/files.h>
#include <narc/api/load.h>
#include <narc/api/pack.h>

If desired, the whole library can also be included with a single include statement:

#include <narc/narc.h>

Acknowledgements

• Martin Korth's gbatek documentation, which is an excellent read on all matters related to the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. In particular, his section on DS cartridge file systems was instrumental in building this implementation. The relevant documentation has been mirrored here in docs, for convenience and preservation.

License

narc is free software licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0. For further details, refer to the included license text.