i still think the way PSX serials are handled in .dat is wrong

[themabus]

thank you for discussion

The current logic is that it only uses the first serial that is entered in the db (for easy identification), so if you put a different serial first it will use that one. I'm not sure what's the point of having 4 serials in a filename. It would be the same as having the barcode or publisher or languages or whatever imho. For this information we have the db.

IMHO we should
- only use internal serials in filenames and put any other 'external' information in the db.

yes i understand that. and currently serials for Japanese records are arranged in a such way so exe name always comes first.
if by internal serial you meand exe name, then i disagree.
all this stir up is because i believe currently Japanese records are corrupted.
all other regions would get only one serial for a title - initial (and only).
Japan get as much serials as there are exe names. those exe names has nothing to do with releases. they're nothing to do with anything.
if our aim would be to have name<=>serial relation
then we would have to instead of exe names assign initial serials to all releases of same title in Japan
(thus artificially recreating the same pattern that's used in the rest of the regions)
but i honestly do not see a reason for this. in Japan serial identifies release why can't we just go with that?

Internal serials + disc/box serials.

yes thank's. but wouldn't you agree that ther's certain logic by which Sony assigns serials  to relases.
and everything else - internal serials (exe names? if i understand right) and serials assigned by developers do not belong there
not on the same level. it's additional information the same way ring codes or bar codes are.
and so to keep the same logic we would have to separete those to a different levels.

I also think that for v1.1 etc. dumps that perhaps it would be good to have the # or whatever's printed behind it on the disc in the filename (if such characters are possible in filenames)..

i agree that if that's the serial printed on covers or cd then it should relate to record not exe name.
but as you can see, i don't think serials are really neccessarry in .dat
compromise could be an additional field assignable by offline manager like Rocknroms suggested.

IMHO we should
switch to the No-Intro naming convention and have new issues (like too long filenames) to keep us busy

I have always been against serials in dat files, so switching to the No-Intro naming convention seems to be a nice idea for me

Dat files do not have to contain all the information from the db. Their only purpose is to identify dump, so any information which doesn't participate in making filenames unique is redundant in dat.

well ok. i'm not sure what No-Intro naming convention is but i suspect it has nothing to do with releases more like with languges.
well ok so bare minimum for record would be:
Name (Region) (version)
it's understood - the serial it's redundant information, not really needed.
so changing serial to languages it's better from point of view of database structure - it's not redundant it describes record in more detail.
but ther's problem currently - this bare minimum, given above, it is enought to keep unique records
but it's not enought to identify record on it's own without additional information from db.
adding edition or abbreviation of it to .dat would largely solve this.
unfortunatelly ther's no any more means of what i'm aware to identify records further than edition.
would rings work (like on PCE), i'd vote to include those too (or a part of a ring that's different) - but well they do not.
so edition is as far as we can get. and i believe .dat should provide those means - to get as close to original source as it's possible.
so in other word's syntax like:
Name (Region) (version1)
Name (Region) (version2)
Name (Region) (version3)
it separates record's but it's cryptic. it does not identify source of material.
imagine if we would assigne serial to each record and keep only those serials in .dat (about like Sony)
current situation is an extention of that principle.
we have serials for records within same title and region which is version.

[themabus]

about No-Intro
i'm sorry. i've downloaded some .dats from http://datomatic.no-intro.org/ and they do have editions.
it looks a-ok to me, except like Jackal said ther's too many letters.
all those long terms could be expressed with abbreviations.
i don't see a reason to state 'Europe' or 'Limited Edition' all the time when it could be 'E' and 'LE' respectively.
but it's a good compromise.
edit:
i guess the reason is most tags being optional. so that makes sense
it looks like it solves all my objections to .dat. except, i'm not sure how they represent multiple editions for single record.
could somebody provide an example please?
(particularly when original edition match to some other.)
but in any case i like it way better than a current pattern.

still what about differentiation of serials into multiple fields?
edit:
never mind. i guess if we decide to go with No-Intro serials won't matter any longer

[Rocknroms]

it looks a-ok to me, except like Jackal said ther's too many letters.
all those long terms could be expressed with abbreviations.

This is what I don't like too of no-intro renaming. Until 2 years ago they used abbreviations.

[BitLooter]

I prefer full region names, myself. I like the way it makes it crystal clear what the region is; for example, recently I was putting together some P/C dats (for parent/clone merging) and there was some confusion as to whether (A) meant Asia or Australia. Full names eliminate such confusion.

Long names don't bother me, either; the *only* time I have ever run into problems with this is when I burned some GBA games to a disc, and had trouble with a few of the 3-in-1/4-in-1 packs that have full title of every game in the filename. Even then, the only reason it wouldn't work right is because I was using some crummy disc burning software that didn't have UDF support.

No-Intro handles multiple editions by adding additional tags to the filename. For example, (v1.1), (Proto), (Beta) to name a few. I'm not sure how they would handle something like a "Greatest Hits" release; cartridge-based systems don't normally have re-releases with a special label, and different versions tend to look the same on the outside.

[themabus]

thanks.
in various sets there are some records with 'Special Edition' but sometimes it's after dash, like a part of the title,
sometimes in brackets, after title.
i wonder would Original & Special Edition appear something like (Original, Special Edition), perhaps?

[Jackal]

We only have to remove the serials from PSX/PS2/PSP.. then all systems will have the same filenames

[Sotho Tal Ker]

One could go with no-intro naming.

Redump offers a (hidden) no-intro style dat already, except game languages are not added to it (yet?).

For people who are serious with dumping, they should refer to the online database, and not to the dat alone.

[themabus]

here is a list of difficulties we would run into (imho) when moving to no-intro:

1. only lower ASCII in Title/Disc title/Edition ..everywhere
2. all Demos, -bans -> Sample
3. vX.X -> vX.XX
4. AltX -> REV X
5. No-Intro Convention does not define flag for Original releases
6. records with no edition would look the same way as Original edition
7. since flags with default value are omitted some entries would look rather strange -
as if record with no edition (shown) isn't Original

Gran Turismo 2 (Disc 1) (Arcade Mode) (Japan) (Original, PSone Books)
Gran Turismo 2 (Disc 2) (Gran Turismo Mode) (Japan)
Gran Turismo 2 (Disc 2) (Gran Turismo Mode) (Japan) (v1.10) (PSone Books)

Tekken (Japan)
Tekken (Japan) (v1.10) (Original, PlayStation the Best)

but fortunately ther's not too many such records.

8. 'Additional' flag would not work for records with multiple editions
if there would be a way to tell apart PSX releases further than edition, by ring for example, it would be like:

Tekken (Japan) (ring1)
Tekken (Japan) (v1.10) (Original, PlayStation the Best) (ring2)

this flag would relate to whole entry, not just Original edition,
but at least for PSX i don't think those flags would be used at all

9. no-intro do define possibility of multiple regions.
IF there would be record with multiple regions AND multiple editions
relation between those two would be unclear

10. SCPS-45xxx range releases for Asia (ther's about 500 of those)
would be absorbed by matching Japan releases becoming invisible
it means - when such release is added or removed, in .dat nothing would change.
i believe every other release would show, reprints and what-not.
in this case it's different region with different serial and it wouldn't, so i think it's wrong.

.
.
.

so maybe we could start to gradually adapt to those rules.
first 4 conditions could be implemented right now
and then it would only require changes in db parsing to output decent/actually usable .dat
the rest difficulties we would resolve with time.