rcheevos

rcheevos is a set of C code, or a library if you will, that tries to make it easier for emulators to process RetroAchievements data, providing support for achievements and leaderboards for their players.

Keep in mind that rcheevos does not provide HTTP network connections or JSON parsing. Clients must get data from RetroAchievements, parse the JSON payloads and pass the results down to rcheevos for processing. (TODO: document the server API and JSON schema.)

Not all structures defined by rcheevos can be created via the public API, but are exposed to allow interactions beyond just creation, destruction, and testing, such as the ones required by UI code that helps to create them.

Finally, rcheevos does not allocate or manage memory by itself. All structures that can be returned by it have a function to determine the number of bytes needed to hold the structure, and another one that actually builds the structure using a caller-provided buffer to bake it. However, calls to rcheevos may allocate and/or free memory as part of the Lua runtime, which is a dependency.

Lua

RetroAchievements has decided to support achievements written using the Lua language. The current expression-based implementation was too limiting already for the Nintendo 64, and was preventing the support of other systems.

rcheevos does not create or maintain a Lua state, you have to create your own state and provide it to rcheevos to be used when Lua-coded achievements are found.

Lua functions used in trigger operands receive two parameters: peek, which is used to read from the emulated system's memory, and userdata, which must be passed to peek. peek's signature is the same as its C counterpart:

function peek(address, num_bytes, userdata)

API

An understanding about how achievements are developed may be useful, you can read more about it here.

User Configuration

There's only one thing that can be configured by users of rcheevos: RC_ALIGNMENT. This macro holds the alignment of allocations made in the buffer provided to the parsing functions, and the default value is sizeof(void*).

If your platform will benefit from a different value, define a new value for it on your compiler flags before compiling the code. It has to be a power of 2, but no checking is done.

Return values

The functions that compute the amount of memory that something will take return the number of bytes, or a negative value from the following enumeration:

enum {
  RC_OK = 0,
  RC_INVALID_LUA_OPERAND = -1,
  RC_INVALID_MEMORY_OPERAND = -2,
  RC_INVALID_CONST_OPERAND = -3,
  RC_INVALID_FP_OPERAND = -4,
  RC_INVALID_CONDITION_TYPE = -5,
  RC_INVALID_OPERATOR = -6,
  RC_INVALID_REQUIRED_HITS = -7,
  RC_DUPLICATED_START = -8,
  RC_DUPLICATED_CANCEL = -9,
  RC_DUPLICATED_SUBMIT = -10,
  RC_DUPLICATED_VALUE = -11,
  RC_DUPLICATED_PROGRESS = -12,
  RC_MISSING_START = -13,
  RC_MISSING_CANCEL = -14,
  RC_MISSING_SUBMIT = -15,
  RC_MISSING_VALUE = -16,
  RC_INVALID_LBOARD_FIELD = -17
};

Console identifiers

This enumeration uniquely identifies each of the supported platforms in RetroAchievements.

enum {
  RC_CONSOLE_MEGA_DRIVE = 1,
  RC_CONSOLE_NINTENDO_64 = 2,
  RC_CONSOLE_SUPER_NINTENDO = 3,
  RC_CONSOLE_GAMEBOY = 4,
  RC_CONSOLE_GAMEBOY_ADVANCE = 5,
  RC_CONSOLE_GAMEBOY_COLOR = 6,
  RC_CONSOLE_NINTENDO = 7,
  RC_CONSOLE_PC_ENGINE = 8,
  RC_CONSOLE_SEGA_CD = 9,
  RC_CONSOLE_SEGA_32X = 10,
  RC_CONSOLE_MASTER_SYSTEM = 11,
  RC_CONSOLE_PLAYSTATION = 12,
  RC_CONSOLE_ATARI_LYNX = 13,
  RC_CONSOLE_NEOGEO_POCKET = 14,
  RC_CONSOLE_GAME_GEAR = 15,
  RC_CONSOLE_GAMECUBE = 16,
  RC_CONSOLE_ATARI_JAGUAR = 17,
  RC_CONSOLE_NINTENDO_DS = 18,
  RC_CONSOLE_WII = 19,
  RC_CONSOLE_WII_U = 20,
  RC_CONSOLE_PLAYSTATION_2 = 21,
  RC_CONSOLE_XBOX = 22,
  RC_CONSOLE_SKYNET = 23,
  RC_CONSOLE_XBOX_ONE = 24,
  RC_CONSOLE_ATARI_2600 = 25,
  RC_CONSOLE_MS_DOS = 26,
  RC_CONSOLE_ARCADE = 27,
  RC_CONSOLE_VIRTUAL_BOY = 28,
  RC_CONSOLE_MSX = 29,
  RC_CONSOLE_COMMODORE_64 = 30,
  RC_CONSOLE_ZX81 = 31
};

rc_operand_t

An operand is the leaf node of RetroAchievements expressions, and can hold one of the following:

• A constant integer or floating-point value
• A memory address of the system being emulated
• A reference to the Lua function that will be called to provide the value

typedef struct {
  union {
    /* A value read from memory. */
    struct {
      /* The memory address or constant value of this variable. */
      unsigned value;
      /* The previous memory contents if RC_OPERAND_DELTA. */
      unsigned previous;

      /* The size of the variable. */
      char size;
      /* True if the value is in BCD. */
      char is_bcd;
      /* The type of the variable. */
    };

    /* A floating point value. */
    double fp_value;

    /* A reference to the Lua function that provides the value. */
    int function_ref;
  };

  char type;
}
rc_operand_t;

The size field, when applicable, holds one of these values:

enum {
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_0,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_1,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_2,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_3,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_4,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_5,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_6,
  RC_OPERAND_BIT_7,
  RC_OPERAND_LOW,
  RC_OPERAND_HIGH,
  RC_OPERAND_8_BITS,
  RC_OPERAND_16_BITS,
  RC_OPERAND_24_BITS,
  RC_OPERAND_32_BITS,
};

The type field is always valid, and holds one of these values:

enum {
  RC_OPERAND_ADDRESS, /* Compare to the value of a live address in RAM. */
  RC_OPERAND_DELTA,   /* The value last known at this address. */
  RC_OPERAND_CONST,   /* A 32-bit unsigned integer. */
  RC_OPERAND_FP,      /* A floating point value. */
  RC_OPERAND_LUA      /* A Lua function that provides the value. */
};

RC_OPERAND_ADDRESS, RC_OPERAND_DELTA and RC_OPERAND_CONST mean that the anonymous structure in the union is active. RC_OPERAND_FP means that fp_value is active. RC_OPERAND_LUA means function_ref is active.

rc_condition_t

A condition compares its two operands according to the defined operator. It also keeps track of other things to make it possible to code more advanced achievements.

typedef struct rc_condition_t rc_condition_t;

struct rc_condition_t {
  /* The next condition in the chain. */
  rc_condition_t* next;

  /* The condition's operands. */
  rc_operand_t operand1;
  rc_operand_t operand2;

  /* Required hits to fire this condition. */
  unsigned required_hits;
  /* Number of hits so far. */
  unsigned current_hits;

  /**
   * Set if the condition needs to processed as part of the "check if paused"
   * pass
   */
  char pause;

  /* The type of the condition. */
  char type;
  /* The comparison operator to use. */
  char oper; /* operator is a reserved word in C++. */
};

type can be one of these values:

enum {
  RC_CONDITION_STANDARD,
  RC_CONDITION_PAUSE_IF,
  RC_CONDITION_RESET_IF,
  RC_CONDITION_ADD_SOURCE,
  RC_CONDITION_SUB_SOURCE,
  RC_CONDITION_ADD_HITS
};

oper is the comparison operator to be used when comparing the two operands:

enum {
  RC_CONDITION_EQ,
  RC_CONDITION_LT,
  RC_CONDITION_LE,
  RC_CONDITION_GT,
  RC_CONDITION_GE,
  RC_CONDITION_NE
};

rc_condset_t

Condition sets are an ordered collection of conditions (rc_condition_t), which are usually and'ed together to help build complex expressions for achievements.

typedef struct rc_condset_t rc_condset_t;

struct rc_condset_t {
  /* The next condition set in the chain. */
  rc_condset_t* next;

  /* The list of conditions in this condition set. */
  rc_condition_t* conditions;

  /* True if any condition in the set is a pause condition. */
  char has_pause;
};

rc_trigger_t

Triggers are the basic blocks of achievements and leaderboards. In fact, achievements are just triggers with some additional information like title, description, a badge, and some state, like whether it has already been awarded or not. All the logic to test if an achievement should be awarded is encapsulated in rc_trigger_t.

typedef struct {
  /* The main condition set. */
  rc_condset_t* requirement;

  /* The list of sub condition sets in this test. */
  rc_condset_t* alternative;
}
rc_trigger_t;

The size in bytes of memory a trigger needs to be created is given by the rc_trigger_size function:

int rc_trigger_size(const char* memaddr);

The return value is the size needed for the trigger described by the memaddr parameter, or a negative value with an error code.

Once the memory size is known, rc_parse_trigger can be called to actually construct a trigger in the caller-provided buffer:

rc_trigger_t* rc_parse_trigger(void* buffer, const char* memaddr, lua_State* L, int funcs_ndx);

buffer is the caller-allocated buffer, which must have enough space for the trigger. memaddr describes the trigger, and must be the same one used to compute the trigger's size with rc_trigger_size. L must be a valid Lua state, and funcs_ndx must be an index to the current Lua stack which contains a table which is a map of names to functions. This map is used to look for operands which are Lua functions.

Once the trigger is created, rc_test_trigger can be called to test whether the trigger fires or not.

int rc_test_trigger(rc_trigger_t* trigger, rc_peek_t peek, void* ud, lua_State* L);

trigger is the trigger to test. peek is a callback used to read bytes from the emulated memory. ud is an user-provided opaque value that is passed to peek. L is the Lua state in which context the Lua functions are looked for and called, if necessary.

rc_peek_t's signature is:

typedef unsigned (*rc_peek_t)(unsigned address, unsigned num_bytes, void* ud);

where address is the starting address to read from, num_bytes the number of bytes to read (1, 2, or 4, little-endian), and ud is the same value passed to rc_test_trigger.

Addresses passed to peek do not map 1:1 to the emulated memory. (TODO: document the mapping from peek addresses to emulated memory for each supported system.)

Finally, rc_reset_trigger can be used to reset the internal state of a trigger.

void rc_reset_trigger(rc_trigger_t* self);

rc_term_t

A term is the leaf node of expressions used to compute values from operands. A term is evaluated by multiplying its two operands. invert is used to invert the bits of the second operand of the term, when the unary operator ~ is used.

typedef struct rc_term_t rc_term_t;

struct rc_term_t {
  /* The next term in this chain. */
  rc_term_t* next;

  /* The first operand. */
  rc_operand_t operand1;
  /* The second operand. */
  rc_operand_t operand2;

  /* A value that is applied to the second variable to invert its bits. */
  unsigned invert;
};

rc_expression_t

An expression is a collection of terms. All terms in the collection are added together to give the value of the expression.

typedef struct rc_expression_t rc_expression_t;

struct rc_expression_t {
  /* The next expression in this chain. */
  rc_expression_t* next;

  /* The list of terms in this expression. */
  rc_term_t* terms;
};

rc_value_t

A value is a collection of expressions. It's used to give the value for a leaderboard, and it evaluates to value of the expression with the greatest value in the collection.

typedef struct {
  /* The list of expression to evaluate. */
  rc_expression_t* expressions;
}
rc_value_t;

The size in bytes needed to create a value can be computed by rc_value_size:

int rc_value_size(const char* memaddr);

With the size at hand, the caller can allocate the necessary memory and pass it to rc_parse_value to create the value:

rc_value_t* rc_parse_value(void* buffer, const char* memaddr, lua_State* L, int funcs_ndx);

buffer, memaddr, L, and funcs_ndx are the same as in rc_parse_trigger.

To compute the value, use rc_evaluate_value:

unsigned rc_evaluate_value(rc_value_t* value, rc_peek_t peek, void* ud, lua_State* L);

value is the value to compute the value of, and peek, ud, and L, are as in rc_test_trigger.

rc_lboard_t

Leaderboards track a value over time, starting when a trigger is fired. The leaderboard can be canceled depending on the value of another trigger, and submitted to the RetroAchievements server depending on a third trigger.

The value submitted comes from the value field. Values displayed to the player come from the progress field unless it's NULL, in which case it's the same as value.

typedef struct {
  rc_trigger_t start;
  rc_trigger_t submit;
  rc_trigger_t cancel;
  rc_value_t value;
  rc_value_t* progress;

  char started;
  char submitted;
}
rc_lboard_t;

Leaderboards are created and parsed just the same as triggers and values:

int rc_lboard_size(const char* memaddr);
rc_lboard_t* rc_parse_lboard(void* buffer, const char* memaddr, lua_State* L, int funcs_ndx);

A leaderboard can be evaluated with the rc_evaluate_lboard function:

int rc_evaluate_lboard(rc_lboard_t* lboard, unsigned* value, rc_peek_t peek, void* peek_ud, lua_State* L);

The function returns an action that must be performed by the caller, and value contains the value to be used for that action when the function returns. The action can be one of:

enum {
  RC_LBOARD_INACTIVE,
  RC_LBOARD_ACTIVE,
  RC_LBOARD_STARTED,
  RC_LBOARD_CANCELED,
  RC_LBOARD_TRIGGERED
};

The caller must keep track of these values and do the necessary actions:

• RC_LBOARD_ACTIVE and RC_LBOARD_INACTIVE: just signal that the leaderboard didn't change its state.
• RC_LBOARD_STARTED: indicates that the leaderboard has been started, so the caller can i.e. show a message for the player, and start showing its value in the UI.
• RC_LBOARD_CANCELED: the leaderboard has been canceled, and the caller can inform the user and stop showing its value.
• RC_LBOARD_TRIGGERED: the leaderboard has been finished, and the value must be submitted to the RetroAchievements server; the caller can also notify the player and stop showing the value in the UI.

rc_reset_lboard resets the leaderboard:

void rc_reset_lboard(rc_lboard_t* lboard);

Value Formatting

rcheevos includes helper functions to parse formatting strings from RetroAchievements, and format values according to them.

rc_parse_format returns the format for the given string:

int rc_parse_format(const char* format_str);

The returned value is one of:

enum {
  RC_FORMAT_FRAMES,
  RC_FORMAT_SECONDS,
  RC_FORMAT_CENTISECS,
  RC_FORMAT_SCORE,
  RC_FORMAT_VALUE,
  RC_FORMAT_OTHER,
};

RC_FORMAT_VALUE is returned if format_str doesn't contain a valid format.

rc_format_value can be used to format the given value into the provided buffer:

void rc_format_value(char* buffer, int size, unsigned value, int format);

buffer receives value formatted according to format. No more than size characters will be written to buffer. 32 characters are enough to hold any valid value with any format.

rurl

rurl builds URLs to access many RetroAchievements web services. Its purpose it to just to free the developer from having to URL-encode parameters and build correct URL that are valid for the server.

rurl does not make HTTP requests.

API

Return values

All functions return 0 if successful, or -1 in case of errors. Errors are usually because the provided buffer is too small to hold the URL. If your buffer is large and you're still receiving errors, please open an issue.

Functions

All functions take a buffer, where the URL will be written into, and size with the size of the buffer. The other parameters are particular to the desired URL.

int rc_url_award_cheevo(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* login_token, unsigned cheevo_id, int hardcore);

int rc_url_submit_lboard(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* login_token, unsigned lboard_id, unsigned value, unsigned char hash[16]);

int rc_url_get_gameid(char* buffer, size_t size, unsigned char hash[16]);

int rc_url_get_patch(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* login_token, unsigned gameid);

int rc_url_get_badge_image(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* badge_name);

int rc_url_login_with_password(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* password);

int rc_url_login_with_token(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* login_token);

int rc_url_get_unlock_list(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* login_token, unsigned gameid, int hardcore);

int rc_url_post_playing(char* buffer, size_t size, const char* user_name, const char* login_token, unsigned gameid);