libaaruformat

C implementation of Aaru file format.

The target is to be able to compile it with a normal C (C89 compliant) compiler.

There are no external dependencies.

cmake is not a hard dependency, it's merely for the ease of using IDEs (specifically CLion).

Currently supported features:

• AaruFormat V1 images reading (writing will never be implemented)
• AaruFormat V2 images reading and writing
• LZMA compression
• Claunia Subchannel Transform
• Optical disc tracks
• XML metadata retrieval (writing will never be implemented)
• JSON metadata retrieval and writing
• Hashing while writing (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SpamSum and BLAKE3)
• Deduplication
• Tape file and partitions
• Dump hardware lists
• Currently on sync (as of October 2025) with Aaru's media type list
• CHS geometry retrieval and setting
• Metadata
• Unit testing
• Automatic generation of API documentation
• It is to all effects feature parity with C#

Things still to be implemented that are already in the C# version:

• Automatic media type generation from C# enumeration
• Nuget package for linking with Aaru

Things to be implemented not in the C# version (maybe):

• Compile for Dreamcast (KallistiOS preferibly)
• Compile for PlayStation Portable
• Compile for Wii
• Compile for Wii U
• Compile for PlayStation 2
• Compile for PlayStation 3
• Snapshots
• Parent images
• Data positioning measurements

Building and Testing

Standard Build

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

Running Tests

cd build
ctest --verbose

Building with Address Sanitizer

For debugging memory issues, you can build with Address Sanitizer enabled:

mkdir build-asan
cd build-asan
cmake -DUSE_ASAN=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
cmake --build .
ctest --verbose

For detailed information on using Address Sanitizer to detect memory issues, see docs/ASAN_USAGE.md.

Other Build Options

• -DUSE_SLOG=ON - Enable slog logging for debugging
• -DUSE_ASAN=ON - Enable Address Sanitizer for memory error detection