RomVault has the ability to store your sets in a variety of ways using the Single Archive option in Directory Rules. This feature is unique to RomVault - no other ROM manager can manipulate the way sets are stored. The most common use case for Single Archives is to bundle potentially thousands of small ROMs into a single zip.

The examples below demonstrate what each option does. Assume a fictitious DAT with the following games:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<datafile>
  <header>
    <name>Demo - Single Archive Settings</name>
    <description>Demo - Single Archive Settings (20201126)</description>
    <version>20201126</version>
    <date>2020-11-26</date>
  </header>
  <game name="game1">
    <description>Game 1</description>    
    <rom name="game1.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
  </game>
  <game name="game2">
    <description>Game 2</description>    
    <rom name="game2.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
  </game>
  <game name="game3">
    <description>Game 3</description>    
    <rom name="file1.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
    <rom name="file2.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
  </game>
  <game name="game4">
    <description>Game 4</description>    
    <rom name="file1.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
    <rom name="file2.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
    <rom name="file3.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
  </game>
  <game name="game5">
    <description>Game 5</description>    
    <rom name="game1.rom" size="0" crc="00000000"/>
  </game>
</datafile>

This will put every ROM into a parent directory using the set name. This is the traditional way ROM managers store sets.

• game1/game1.rom
• game2/game2.rom
• game3/file1.rom
• game3/file2.rom
• game4/file1.rom
• game4/file2.rom
• game4/file3.rom
• game5/game1.rom

This will put every ROM into the base directory. If there are any ROM name conflicts, the ROMs will be renamed by appending an underscore character and an incrementing number. This setting is generally only useful if you know the DAT does not have any name conflicts across ROMs.

• file1.rom
• file1_0.rom
• file2.rom
• file2_0.rom
• file3.rom
• game1.rom
• game1_0.rom
• game2.rom

This will put every ROM into the base directory, however if there are any ROM name conflicts whatsoever then this setting falls back to “Add SubDirs” behavior for the entire DAT. This setting is useful if you prefer no subdirectories, but want to be certain you do not run into any scenarios where ROMs are renamed with an incrementing number. The example below matches Add SubDirs because there is a naming conflict.

• game1/game1.rom
• game2/game2.rom
• game3/file1.rom
• game3/file2.rom
• game4/file1.rom
• game4/file2.rom
• game4/file3.rom
• game5/game1.rom

This will put ROMs into the base directory if the following conditions are met:

• The set must consist of a single ROM only
• The set name must match the ROM name (case sensitive) minus the file extension

All other ROMs will be placed in subdirectories using the set name. This option is useful in combination with the “file” archive type for DATs that are predominately very large and poorly compressible single-file sets.

• game1.rom
• game2.rom
• game3/file1.rom
• game3/file2.rom
• game4/file1.rom
• game4/file2.rom
• game4/file3.rom
• game5/game1.rom