OE dbx file format : 'file structure'

The first sector

The first sector is used for the file header and the file info.
The shortest dbx files I found only consists of a file header and nothing else.

The middle sector

The middle sector is used to store all other objects. The first value of each object in this sector is the address of the object(object marker).
This sector is divided up into segments. I found three different types of segments :

  1. The variable segments are used to store objects of different type and size. This segments are used because objects of the same type don't have the same size ( indexed info objects) or there are only a few objects of a special type (conditions or folder list objects).
  2. The tree segments are used to store the tree node objects. Each object has a size of 0x27c bytes.
  3. The message segments are used to store the message objects. Each object has a size of 0x210 bytes. This segments are only used in the message dbx files.

The last sector

The last sector contains the reserve space.
If new segments are needed in the middle sector, space from the last sector can be used without the need of resizing the file.


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