RL tutorial Advanced Searching

ROMLister is a search tool. The fun part is that you can search for an unlimited number of items, and group those items any way you'd like to.

You may have noticed when playing around with the Quick-find wizard that the text on the bottom of the screen changed as you clicked various options.

ROMLister Quickfind

That text in the -find window is what gets sent into the search engine. Any ROM that meets all of the criteria supplied, gets put into the output list.
Let's examine a simple search query of "Any game that is 3 buttons or less, and uses an 8-way joystick"
The following text is what gets built by the quick-find wizard: (yeah, there's a little more text, but this is the core of it)

(numButtons=3 | numButtons=2 | numButtons=1 | numButtons=0) & joy8way

Here's the same query in slightly more human-readable format:

( numButtons=3 OR numButtons=2 OR numButtons=1 OR numButtons=0 ) AND joy8way

Remember back in math class with order of operations? You do stuff in the parenthesis first, then take the results of that "group" and continue working through the problem. Same deal here.
In this example, ROMLister will check each game and see if it is a 3,2,1 or 0 button game. If it is, then it checks to see if the game uses an 8way joystick. If yes, then the game is added to the output list. If either the game is more than 3 buttons, or the game is not 8way, then it doesn't get added. This search criteria is checked against each game, and only the ones that match are outputted.

So, with ROMLister, you can put as many of these search parameters as you want in, and you can build up some pretty unique searches. The quick-find wizard is only a simple tool to build your first few searches, anything really advanced will require you to change the -find criteria by hand. ---

The stuff that you can search on is specified by the input XML file. When you first bring up ROMLister, it'll show you the 1st game entry, which is typically Puckman, which looks like this:

<game name="puckmana" sourcefile="pacman.c" cloneof="puckman" romof="puckman">
	<description>PuckMan (Japan set 2)</description>
	<year>1980</year>
	<manufacturer>Namco</manufacturer>
	<category>Maze</category>
	<controls info>numPlayers="2" alternating="1" mirrored="1" usesService="0" tilt="0" cocktail="1"</controls info>
	<player number="1" numButtons="0">
		<controls>
			<control name="4-way Joystick">
				<constant name="joy4way"/>
			</control>
		</controls>
	<labels>
			<label name="P1_JOYSTICK_RIGHT" value="Right"/>
			<label name="P1_JOYSTICK_LEFT" value="Left"/>
			<label name="P1_JOYSTICK_DOWN" value="Down"/>
			<label name="P1_JOYSTICK_UP" value="Up"/>
		</labels>
	</player>
	<rom name="pacman.6e" size="4096" crc="c1e6ab10" sha1="e87e059c5be45753f7e9f33dff851f16d6751181" region="cpu1" offset="0"/>
	<rom name="pacman.6f" size="4096" crc="1a6fb2d4" sha1="674d3a7f00d8be5e38b1fdc208ebef5a92d38329" region="cpu1" offset="1000"/>
	<rom name="pacman.6h" size="4096" crc="bcdd1beb" sha1="8e47e8c2c4d6117d174cdac150392042d3e0a881" region="cpu1" offset="2000"/>
	<rom name="prg7" size="2048" crc="b6289b26" sha1="d249fa9cdde774d5fee7258147cd25fa3f4dc2b3" region="cpu1" offset="3000"/>
	<rom name="prg8" size="2048" crc="17a88c13" sha1="eb462de79f49b7aa8adb0cc6d31535b10550c0ce" region="cpu1" offset="3800"/>
	<rom name="chg1" size="2048" crc="2066a0b7" sha1="6d4ccc27d6be185589e08aa9f18702b679e49a4a" region="gfx1" dispose="yes" offset="0"/>
	<rom name="chg2" size="2048" crc="3591b89d" sha1="79bb456be6c39c1ccd7d077fbe181523131fb300" region="gfx1" dispose="yes" offset="800"/>
	<rom name="pacman.5f" merge="pacman.5f" size="4096" crc="958fedf9" sha1="4a937ac02216ea8c96477d4a15522070507fb599" region="gfx1" dispose="yes" offset="1000"/>
	<rom name="82s123.7f" merge="82s123.7f" size="32" crc="2fc650bd" sha1="8d0268dee78e47c712202b0ec4f1f51109b1f2a5" region="proms" offset="0"/>
	<rom name="82s126.4a" merge="82s126.4a" size="256" crc="3eb3a8e4" sha1="19097b5f60d1030f8b82d9f1d3a241f93e5c75d6" region="proms" offset="20"/>
	<rom name="82s126.1m" merge="82s126.1m" size="256" crc="a9cc86bf" sha1="bbcec0570aeceb582ff8238a4bc8546a23430081" region="sound1" offset="0"/>
	<rom name="82s126.3m" merge="82s126.3m" size="256" crc="77245b66" sha1="0c4d0bee858b97632411c440bea6948a74759746" region="sound1" offset="100"/>
	<chip type="cpu" name="Z80" clock="3072000"/>
	<chip type="audio" name="Namco" clock="96000"/>
	<video screen="raster" orientation="vertical" width="224" height="288" aspectx="3" aspecty="4" refresh="60.606060"/>
	<sound channels="1"/>
	<input players="2" control="joy4way" buttons="1" coins="2"/>
	<dipswitch name="Rack Test (Cheat)">
		<dipvalue name="Off" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="On"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Service Mode">
		<dipvalue name="Off" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="On"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Cabinet">
		<dipvalue name="Upright" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="Cocktail"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Coinage">
		<dipvalue name="2 Coins/1 Credit"/>
		<dipvalue name="1 Coin/1 Credit" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="1 Coin/2 Credits"/>
		<dipvalue name="Free Play"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Lives">
		<dipvalue name="1"/>
		<dipvalue name="2"/>
		<dipvalue name="3" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="5"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Bonus Life">
		<dipvalue name="10000" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="15000"/>
		<dipvalue name="20000"/>
		<dipvalue name="None"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Difficulty">
		<dipvalue name="Normal" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="Hard"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="Ghost Names">
		<dipvalue name="Normal" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="Alternate"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<dipswitch name="2x Speed Cheat">
		<dipvalue name="Disabled" default="yes"/>
		<dipvalue name="Enabled Always"/>
		<dipvalue name="Enabled with Button"/>
	</dipswitch>
	<driver status="good" emulation="good" color="good" sound="good" graphic="good" palettesize="32"/>
</game>

Anything in the above text can be a search parameter. You've got screen orientation, screen refresh rate, resolution, joystick/control types, emulation status, cocktail support, manufacturer, year of release, category, clone or parent, even actual ROM names. You can pick anything in there to search on, and combine multiple searches into a single query.

some examples will go here...