<trclass="memdesc:"><tdclass="mdescLeft"> </td><tdclass="mdescRight">Describes a single logical file on a tape medium. <ahref="structTapeFileEntry.html#details">More...</a><br/></td></tr>
<trclass="memdesc:"><tdclass="mdescLeft"> </td><tdclass="mdescRight">Describes a single physical partition on a tape medium. <ahref="structTapePartitionEntry.html#details">More...</a><br/></td></tr>
<divclass="textblock"><p>Data structures for tape media support in Aaru disk images. </p>
<p>This header defines structures used to represent tape-specific metadata in the Aaru image format. Tape media differs from disk media in several key ways:</p>
<p><b>Tape Organization:</b></p><ul>
<li>Tapes are organized into sequential blocks rather than random-access sectors</li>
<li>Multiple logical files can exist on a single tape</li>
<li>Tapes may be divided into multiple partitions</li>
<li>Files are defined by contiguous ranges of blocks within a partition</li>
</ul>
<p><b>File Structure:</b> Tape files are logical groupings of blocks that represent discrete data units. Each file has:</p><ul>
<li>A unique file number identifying it within its partition</li>
<li>A partition number indicating which physical partition contains it</li>
<li>A block range (FirstBlock to LastBlock, inclusive) defining its extent</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Partition Structure:</b> Tape partitions are physical divisions of the tape medium. Each partition:</p><ul>
<li>Has a unique partition number</li>
<li>Contains a contiguous range of blocks</li>
<li>Can contain multiple files or none</li>
<li>May have different formatting or characteristics</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Block Addressing:</b> Block numbers are sequential within a partition, starting from 0. The FirstBlock and LastBlock values are inclusive, meaning both boundary blocks are part of the file or partition. For example, a file with FirstBlock=100 and LastBlock=199 contains 100 blocks (blocks 100 through 199 inclusive).</p>
<p><b>Use Cases:</b></p><ul>
<li>Archiving legacy tape media (DAT, DLT, LTO, QIC, etc.)</li>
<li>Preserving tape structure for restoration to physical media</li>
<li>Forensic imaging of tape evidence</li>
<li>Migration of tape archives to modern storage</li>
<li>Documentation of tape organization for archival purposes</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Storage in Aaru Images:</b> The tape metadata blocks (<aclass="el"href="structTapeFileHeader.html"title="Header for a tape file metadata block containing file layout information.">TapeFileHeader</a> and <aclass="el"href="structTapePartitionHeader.html"title="Header for a tape partition metadata block containing partition layout information.">TapePartitionHeader</a>) are optional structural blocks written during image finalization. They allow readers to understand the logical organization of the tape without parsing the entire data stream.</p>
<dlclass="section note"><dt>Note</dt><dd>All structures in this file use packed alignment (#pragma pack(push, 1)) to ensure consistent on-disk layout across different compilers and platforms.</dd>
<dd>
Block addresses are 0-based and partition numbers typically start from 0 (though some tape formats may use 1-based numbering).</dd></dl>
<dlclass="section see"><dt>See also</dt><dd><aclass="el"href="enums_8h.html#a54420623f26ab6bb61042b41cccf37a3"title="List of known block types contained in an Aaru image.">BlockType</a> for the identifier constants used in <aclass="el"href="structTapeFileHeader.html"title="Header for a tape file metadata block containing file layout information.">TapeFileHeader</a> and <aclass="el"href="structTapePartitionHeader.html"title="Header for a tape partition metadata block containing partition layout information.">TapePartitionHeader</a></dd></dl>
<pclass="definition">Definition in file <aclass="el"href="tape_8h_source.html">tape.h</a>.</p>
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