MPQ Archives

The StormLib library

History

When Diablo I was released, many people were looking for a way how to play the music and sounds from the game. Soon, tools started to appear, that used Storm.dll library (shipped with the game) for reading data from the game MPQs. Blizzard was aware of that and since version 1.04 of Diablo, Storm.dll contained tricks to prevent people from using it to read game archives. Althought these tricks can be overcame, people started to look for an alternative how to read (and also to write) MPQ archives without relying on Blizzard library.

The first library that was able to write MPQ archives was LMPQAPI, created by Russian programmer Andrej Lelikov. The library utilized StarEdit.exe and allowed to call internal functions that were able to create MPQs and add files to them.

Tom Amigo was the first guy who released a Stormless MPQ Editor, which was able to read (and also write later) MPQ archives without using Storm.dll. At about the same time, (year 2000), I started to reverse Storm.dll in order to get a working, public C++ code that is able to read MPQ archives. As a result, StormLib v 1.0 was released. As of today (year 2010), StormLib is still being maintained and is currently able to read files and add files to MPQ archives.

The StormLib library

The StormLib library is a pack of modules, written in C++, which are able to read and also to write files from/to the MPQ archives. The original version was written for the Win32 platform. There is also a Linux port, made by Marko Friedemann and a Mac port, made by Sam Wilkins. The library is free, no license is needed to use it in your projects. You can download it from the Downloads section. Should you find any problems or or malfunctions, please, let me know and also send me the MPQ archive that caused the problem.

StormLib funtions

All StormLib functions are defined in StormLib.h header file. You can also download the entire documentation for offline browsing.

Manipulating MPQ archives

Function	Description
SFileOpenArchive	Opens a MPQ archive
SFileCreateArchive	Creates a new MPQ archive
SFileCreateArchiveEx	Removed
SFileAddListFile	Adds another list file to the open archive in order to improve searching
SFileSetLocale	Changes default locale ID for adding new files
SFileGetLocale	Returns current locale ID for adding new files
SFileFlushArchive	Flushes all unsaved data to the disk
SFileCloseArchive	Closes an open archive
SFileSetMaxFileCount	Changes the file limit for the archive
SFileCompactArchive	Compacts (rebuilds) the archive, freeing all gaps that were created by write operations
SFileSetCompactCallback	Allows to set a callback function for archive compacting

Using patched archives

Function	Description
SFileOpenPatchArchive	Adds a patch archive for an existing open archive
SFileIsPatchedArchive	Determines if the open MPQ has patches

Reading files

Function	Description
SFileOpenFileEx	Opens a file from MPQ archive
SFileGetFileSize	Retrieves a size of the file within archive
SFileSetFilePointer	Sets a new position within archive file
SFileReadFile	Reads data from the file
SFileCloseFile	Closes an open file
SFileHasFile	Quick check if the file exists within MPQ archive, without opening it
SFileGetFileName	Retrieves name of an open file
SFileGetFileInfo	Retrieves an information about open file or archive
SFileVerifyFile	Verifies a file against its extended attributes
SFileVerifyArchive	Verifies the digital signature of an archive
SFileExtractFile	Extracts a file from MPQ to the local drive

File searching

Function	Description
SFileFindFirstFile	Finds a first file matching the specification
SFileFindNextFile	Finds a next file matching the specification
SFileFindClose	Stops searching in MPQ
SListFileFindFirstFile	Finds a first line in the listfile that matches the specification
SListFileFindNextFile	Finds a next line in the listfile that matches the specification
SListFileFindClose	Stops searching in the listfile
SFileEnumLocales	Enumerates all locales for a given file that are in the archive

Adding files to MPQ

Function	Description
SFileCreateFile	Creates a new file in MPQ and prepares it for writing data
SFileWriteFile	Writes data to the file within MPQ
SFileFinishFile	Finalizes writing file to the MPQ
SFileAddFileEx	Adds a file to the archive
SFileAddFile	Adds a data file to the archive (obsolete)
SFileAddWave	Adds a WAVE file to the archive (obsolete)
SFileRemoveFile	Deletes a file from MPQ archive
SFileRenameFile	Renames a file within MPQ archive
SFileSetFileLocale	Changes locale of a file in MPQ archive
SFileSetDataCompression	Sets default compression method for adding a data file using SFileAddFile
SFileSetAddFileCallback	Sets callback function that is called to inform the calling application about progress of adding file to the archive

Compression functions

Function	Description
SCompImplode	Compresses a data buffer using IMPLODE method (Pkware Data Compression Library)
SCompExplode	Decompresses a buffer that has been imploded by SCompImplode
SCompCompress	Compresses a data buffer using any of the supported MPQ compressions
SCompDecompress	Decompresses a data buffer that has been compressed by SCompCompress

Example

Here is an example of a function, which extracts one file from the archive.

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Extracts an archived file and saves it to the disk.
//
// Parameters :
//
//   char * szArchiveName  - Archive file name
//   char * szArchivedFile - Name/number of archived file.
//   char * szFileName     - Name of the target disk file.

static int ExtractFile(char * szArchiveName, char * szArchivedFile, char * szFileName)
{
    HANDLE hMpq   = NULL;          // Open archive handle
    HANDLE hFile  = NULL;          // Archived file handle
    HANDLE handle = NULL;          // Disk file handle
    int    nError = ERROR_SUCCESS; // Result value

    // Open an archive, e.g. "d2music.mpq"
    if(nError == ERROR_SUCCESS)
    {
        if(!SFileOpenArchive(szArchiveName, 0, 0, &hMpq))
            nError = GetLastError();
    }
    
    // Open a file in the archive, e.g. "data\global\music\Act1\tristram.wav"
    if(nError == ERROR_SUCCESS)            
    {
        if(!SFileOpenFileEx(hMpq, szArchivedFile, 0, &hFile))
            nError = GetLastError()
    }

    // Create the target file
    if(nError == ERROR_SUCCESS)
    {
        handle = CreateFile(szFileName, GENERIC_WRITE, 0, NULL, CREATE_ALWAYS, 0, NULL);
        if(handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
            nError = GetLastError();
    }

    // Read the file from the archive
    if(nError == ERROR_SUCCESS)
    {
        char  szBuffer[0x10000];
        DWORD dwBytes = 1;

        while(dwBytes > 0)
        {
            SFileReadFile(hFile, szBuffer, sizeof(szBuffer), &dwBytes, NULL);
            if(dwBytes > 0)
                WriteFile(handle, szBuffer, dwBytes, &dwBytes, NULL);
        }
    }        

    // Cleanup and exit
    if(handle != NULL)
        CloseHandle(handle);
    if(hFile != NULL)
        SFileCloseFile(hFile);
    if(hMpq != NULL)
        SFileCloseArchive(hMpq);

    return nError;
}