Badboy File Formats

This section explains the file formats that Badboy uses to save scripts.

Binary Format

The binary format is the original Badboy file format and in this format files are saved with the extension ".bb".  The binary format has the following characteristics:
  • It is fast to load and save
  • It is compact
  • It is not human readable and is hard for other tools to read
  • It is hard to merge changes from two scripts together using text-based merging tools

XML Format

Because the binary format is difficult for other tools to read and write, a second file format was created.  This format is based on XML so that any software program that processes XML can read and write the files. The XML format is saved using a file extension of ".bx", and has the following characteristics:
  • It is slower to load and save
  • It is much larger - script files may be 3 - 4 times larger when saved as XML than they are in the binary format
  • It can be easily opened and read by other programs
  • If you have a team of people editing the same script then it is possible to merge scripts together using text or xml based merge tools.  This is particularly useful when you wish to check your scripts into source control systems.

Badboy XML

In versions prior to 2.0, Badboy supported an  XML format called "Badboy XML".   Although Badboy can write files in this format, it does not support loading them back in.  This format is still supported in its current form, however new features and functions will be built based on the new XML format.
Badboy Documentation Generated on Tue Sep 09 21:43:57 EST 2008