[Question] What's the difference between pb2 & xml map file?

[Question] What's the difference between pb2 & xml map file?

Postby Girl_Power » 2 July 2020, 05:12

Basically what the title infers; what's the difference between the .pb2 and .xml map file options found in the download maps option?
Forever young, ever strong, ever brave.
User avatar
Girl_Power
Noir Lime [600]
 
Posts: 666
Joined: 12 February 2017, 00:45
Location: Earth | Close To The Sun

Re: [Question] What's the difference between pb2 & xml map f

Postby Nyove » 2 July 2020, 07:18

Short answer:
File format.

Long answer:
We need to first understand what exactly is a file format.
Every file stores data (in binaries, 0s and 1s). The data needs to be structured in a certain way such that Applications can open them.

Follow the ASCII table and you get a ASCII encoded text file (.txt), where applications like notepad can open them and display them as letters in your screen. Follow the html file format and you get a HTML file (.html), where browser applications like google chrome can open them as webpages.

XML is also a file format - the purpose of which is to store data. If you open a .xml file, you can see every objects you created in the ALE in .xml. XML is a standard file format, used by many other applications around the world. Some programs communicate with each other using the .xml file format.

XML is readable. That means, the data is encoded into letters such that we humans can read the data too. This in turn sacrifices optimization = lesser amount of data can be used to achieve the same results.

Therefore, I assume Eric Gurt came up with his own file format, a .pb2map file format. It is not readable, as the data are not encoded in a way other applications can represent the data with letters. Standard applications don't understand how to open this file - with the exception of his web application. His web application will read the .pb2map file, and perform corresponding actions to generate the map according to the data in it. (He programmed the web application to perform these taskes.)

We are given two options to download a PB2 map file, a .xml file or a .pb2map file. The .xml file is for us to take a look at how the data is structured and the .pb2map file is the more optimized version representing PB2 maps. I assume the web application will convert the .xml file into .pb2file if you upload the .xml file.

More reading:
File format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_format
XML: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML#:~:te ... age%20(XML)

P.S: There is a forum topic which attempts to decipher the meaning of .pb2map file.
Proud to be part of something meaningful.
Need any assistance? Join the PB2 discord server at https://discord.com/invite/Bhe9rNz or raise a support ticket at https://www.plazmaburst2.com/support

Contact me on discord for quickest reply possible.

User avatar
Nyove
Moderator
 
Posts: 255
Joined: 7 July 2016, 10:26
Location: Cicada 3301

Re: [Question] What's the difference between pb2 & xml map f

Postby Girl_Power » 2 July 2020, 23:35

Thanks, Nyove!


Question answered. Topic locked.
Forever young, ever strong, ever brave.
User avatar
Girl_Power
Noir Lime [600]
 
Posts: 666
Joined: 12 February 2017, 00:45
Location: Earth | Close To The Sun


Return to Bug Reporting Archive

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users