General dat notes

• Serials should be separated with a comma and no space
• HTTP response headers should be attached to the file as a unique attachment.
• anonomous dumper names like !anon-YYYY-MM-DD-######## can be used to uniquely identify an anonymous dumper, where YYYY-MM-DD is the GMT date the id was generated and ######## is a randomly generated lowercase alphanumeric 8-character string. The same id should be used across multiple dumps by the same anonymous person.
• If the ROM was dumped as trimmed (dumping tool guesses or checks when the "real" data ends), but then restored from the header field, you can add: [Dumped as trimmed, restored from header] to the comment1 field
• If the dump date is from the http response header(s) date field, put [Date from HTTP headers] in the comment2 field.
• If the file sizes are from the http response header(s) length field, put [Sizes from HTTP headers] in the comment2 field.

Fields

Archive

Field	Explaination
Special	Comma+space seperated values. Use "Aftermarket" if the game wasn't released within the console's lifespan.
Game ID	Generally, this shouldn't be used - use the source or file serial fields instead.

Source

Field	Explaination
Session	Generally, this shouldn't be used.
Title on media	Generally, this shouldn't be used.
Origin	This should only be used if the origin is non-standard for that system. E.g. just leave it blank instead of putting "Retail cart".

File

Field	Explaination
Date	Generally, this shouldn't be used, as it is put into the datfile, and ROM managers may change the local file date to match this, which may be undesirable.
File version	This should only be used if an archive encompases multiple game versions (e.g. Nintendo CDN stuff).
Origin	This is a WIP alternative to making "Trusted Modification" sources, and shouldn't be used for now.

Tags

Documentation for common "tags" that are used in comment fields.

Sticky Note

Tag	Explaination
!pc-platform-[platform]	For IBM PC digital. Values: windows, mac, linux. e.g. !pc-platform-windows
[Original title: x]	Where x is the original title. To be used if the Media fields aren't enabled for that dat yet.

Comment 1

Tag	Explaination
[Trimmed]	Used to mark something as trimmed without using the "Trimmed" ROM status, which sets the source as bad.
[Untrimmed]	For Trusted Modification sources.
[Modification of file: size-sha256]	For Trusted Modification sources. size = Size in bytes, sha256 = sha256 of file, all caps
[Dev cart]	Used when dump status is set to "other" to prevent dev cart from counting towards verified status.
[Internal checksum mismatch]	Internal checksum doesn't match data.
[Standalone fix]	For Satellaview Trusted Modification sources that contain fixed standalone ROMs for games in a Memory Pack.
[Marked as deleted]	For satellaview ROMs that were marked as deleted (blanked header)
[Extracted files]

Comment 2

Tag	Explaination
[Asked dumper for more info]	To be used when the dumper hasn't provide pictures, etc, you've asked them for this extra info/data and are waiting.