SkoolKit Files

SkoolKit is the community standard for published Spectrum disassemblies. Klive reads and writes its two file formats: skool files (a full annotated disassembly) and control files (.ctl, the structure and comments, which SkoolKit combines with a snapshot).

Klive’s skool and ctl readers and writers are its own, written from SkoolKit’s documented file formats. SkoolKit itself is not needed.

Importing

Open the program first — a snapshot, a NEX file, your project — so its bytes are in the machine. Then use Import SkoolKit File… from the tools button of the Disassembly view, or:


skool-import game.skool -apply

Klive never builds memory from a skool file. It assembles each instruction at its address and compares it with the bytes it already has; an entry that does not match keeps its comments and labels but not its regions, and is listed. A control file has no instructions, so it is checked by length only.

What comes in:

SkoolKit	Klive
`c`, `b`, `w`, `t` entries and sub-blocks	code, bytes, words and text regions
`s`, `g`, `u` entries	bytes regions
`i` entries	skip regions
`@label=`	a label
An entry’s title, description, registers and start comment	the synopsis on its first address
Instruction comments	end-of-line comments (a `{...}` comment on its first instruction)
Mid-block comments	the synopsis of the instruction they precede
End comments	lines after the entry’s last instruction

Skool macros such as #R32768 are kept as text. What Klive does not model — other @ directives, text between entries, * entry points — is kept with the bank, so exporting an unedited import gives the file back. Two labels that differ only in case are imported as NAME and NAME_2.

@bank switches the bank at $C000 in a 128K file. Addresses in the ROM go to your ROM annotations only, never to the ones Klive ships.

Exporting

Export as SkoolKit from the tools button, or:


skool-export game.skool -bank all
skool-export game.ctl -ctl $8000 $9fff

The export uses SkoolKit’s conventional style: upper case, $ hex, numeric operands, and @label= lines for names. A new entry starts at every region boundary and at every address with a synopsis. A 48K export is one file; a 128K export adds every other annotated bank as an @bank section at $C000 (or one file per bank with -split). A Next bank exports as its own file at $C000. A named graphic becomes a b entry whose description draws it with a #UDGARRAY macro.