I just added ByteArray inflate/deflate support:
https://github.com/fatcerberus/minisphere/commit/40063460804b7834b18b0e71099fab44184f7310

Used like:
var little = bytearray.deflate([level]);
var big = bytearray.inflate();

Honestly though, I'm not sure how useful this is in a game engine - I only added it because 1) Sphere 1.6 has it and 2) I already had a zlib dependency thanks to libmng, so may as well use it.

It would be useful saving data or sending data across a network.

zlib is so fast and so common that there's not really a good reason not to use it when sending or saving more than a few kilobytes of data.

You also pulled in zlib once you supported png.

Works perfectly:

Code: [Select]

function game(){
	var originaltext = "Hello Sphere Worlds!";
	var source = CreateByteArrayFromString( originaltext );

	var compressed = DeflateByteArray( source , 9); // Sphere Syntax
	//var compressed = source.deflate(9); // MiniSphere Syntax

	if( compressed !== null ){
		var inflated = InflateByteArray(compressed, 1024*16); // Sphere Syntax
		//var inflated = compressed.inflate(); // MiniSphere Syntax
		if(inflated !== null){
			var copy = CreateStringFromByteArray(inflated);
			if(copy === originaltext)
			  Abort( "SUCCES:" + CreateStringFromByteArray(inflated) );
			else
			  Abort("ByteArray to string failed");
			  
		}else{
			Abort( "Decompression failed." );
		}
	}else{
		Abort("Compression failed.")
	}
}

// MiniSphere to Sphere syntax

function DeflateByteArray(BA_obj,ratio){
  return BA_obj.deflate(ratio);
}

function InflateByteArray(BA_obj,size){
  return BA_obj.inflate(size); // need size or we can make a inflate bomb?
}

edit: A deflate bomb is possible:  http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/51071/zlib-deflate-decompression-bomb

You also pulled in zlib once you supported png.

In theory, yes.  In practice no because Allegro uses GDIplus to load images on Windows.  Nonetheless, I did pull it in with libmng, so your point stands.

Works perfectly:

Code: [Select]

function game(){
	var originaltext = "Hello Sphere Worlds!";
	var source = CreateByteArrayFromString( originaltext );

	var compressed = DeflateByteArray( source , 9); // Sphere Syntax
	//var compressed = source.deflate(9); // MiniSphere Syntax

	if( compressed !== null ){
		var inflated = InflateByteArray(compressed, 1024*16); // Sphere Syntax
		//var inflated = compressed.inflate(); // MiniSphere Syntax
		if(inflated !== null){
			var copy = CreateStringFromByteArray(inflated);
			if(copy === originaltext)
			  Abort( "SUCCES:" + CreateStringFromByteArray(inflated) );
			else
			  Abort("ByteArray to string failed");
			  
		}else{
			Abort( "Decompression failed." );
		}
	}else{
		Abort("Compression failed.")
	}
}

// MiniSphere to Sphere syntax

function DeflateByteArray(BA_obj,ratio){
  return BA_obj.deflate(ratio);
}

function InflateByteArray(BA_obj,size){
  return BA_obj.inflate(size); // need size or we can make a inflate bomb?
}

You don't even need the shims with the latest commit, I added the Sphere compatible functions. 

Could you also test the ColorMatrix support?

sure thing, will work on it over the weekend.

One potential pitfall: minisphere will throw if an inflate/deflate fails, apparently Sphere returns null instead?

Good point on the potential for inflate bombs though, I'll add an optional size parameter when I get a chance.

Didn't original Sphere never throw exceptions because implementing exceptions was a difficult mess, or am I wrong on that? Even if it did though, it'd be pretty inconsistent with everything else. I've never seen try..catch in Sphere...

Didn't original Sphere never throw exceptions because implementing exceptions was a difficult mess, or am I wrong on that? Even if it did though, it'd be pretty inconsistent with everything else. I've never seen try..catch in Sphere...

I thought it did? For instance, you could try...catch a LoadImage in case the image didn't exist?

Canonical Sphere scripts certainly don't use exceptions much at all, either way.

Yeah, LoadImage et al will throw on error.  sphere APIs that return null on failure are in the minority I think.

Huh. Well, how about that. I was certain there was a whole issue around this, but guess not.

...And here I have this whole script/function dedicated to loading resources and doing its best determining whether a resource exists or not and providing placeholders for years... Time to update that script to make use of it, I suppose.

I'm 99% certain that anytime you get the black screen + white text that blames a SS_* function, you could have used a try...catch on it

Just for some reason, none of us ever did that...

On that note, the minisphere error screen is so much nicer looking than the Sphere 1.5 one.  Just have to toot my own horn a little...

On that note, the minisphere error screen is so much nicer looking than the Sphere 1.5 one.  Just have to toot my own horn a little...

But can you select the text on the error screen?

You can select the text in TurboSphere's error screen

I wanted to do something like that, but as Allegro has no clipboard routines...