ModInfo v1.0

Written October 20th, 1996 by Trixter of Hornet (Jim Leonard)

Download ModInfo v1.0

Quick Documentation

ModInfo is a handy little utility that helps you catalog all your Amiga music modules (usually called "MODs") and other PC variants, like Scream Tracker 3 (S3M) files, Impulse Tracker (IM) files, etc. It lists the filename, the song title, the tracker used to create it, and the number of channels. Since some songs play differently on different versions of trackers, the version number of the authoring tracker is displayed as well, if detected.

Usage of the program is very simple: Simply type modinfo while in a directory with music modules. More complete information and additional options can be listed by typing modinfo -? at the command-line prompt.

ModInfo outputs to standard output (STDOUT), so you can pipe the output to a program, redirect it to a file, etc. Stuff I commonly do:

        modinfo c:\songs > report.txt           (redirection to a file)
        modinfo -v c:\misc | grep "identified"  (turns on verbose errors
                                                and pipes to grep)

Notes

I wrote this in two days (about 9 hours) because I was burning a CDROM of my mod collection from 1989 to 1996, and wanted a better listing than just a directory. It took 9 hours because I'm not that fantastic a coder compared to some of the uber-teens in the demoscene. (I'm not as hopped up on Jolt as I used to be. :-) Also, some of the docs I had were wrong in places. For example, the Ultratracker channel info is documented one byte away from where it is, and reported one byte lower than it really is. Also, FastTracker II stopped upgrading the file format version number at 2.04, so even if you save a file in FT 2.06, it still is saved as 2.04. Blargh...

I hope this is useful to you. If not, drop me a line with the reason why.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: "Where's support for format xxxxx?"
A: I don't have one of those. Send me a song and, if possible, the name of the tracker used to create it (or better yet, the file format) and I'll add support for it.

Q: "Where the hell have you been?"
A: Real life gets in the way sometimes. I'm around the demoscene somewhere. I'll be here for a while, lurking...

Greets:

Tom Rathborne, for the original ModUtils, inspiration, and sample code. :-)

Phoenix, for helping me test this quickly and doing a thorough job. (Where the heck are the other Hornet members when you need them? ;-)

Miscellaneous

The source code is extremely ugly, but if you want me to put it online, feel free to ask.