====== Meta information database ======

RetroFE uses the following information to create the item lists for the menus:
  * menu.txt
  * Files in the roms directory
  * include.txt
  * exclude.txt
  * <collection name>.sub
More information about this can be found in the [[collections|collections]] section of this documentation. As can be seen though: RetroFE does **not** use the meta xml files to create these lists!

The files in the meta directory are used for one thing only: to fill the meta.db database. This meta.db in turn is used to fill in the extra information such as full title, genre, rating, score, etc. in the created menu item list for games. Extra information for collections is pulled from the settings.conf and/or info.conf file of the collection.

RetroFE supports three types of meta information:
  * HyperSpin xml files from the directory meta/hyperlist.
  * truRIP (super)dat files from the directory meta/trurip.
  * MAME xml files from the directory meta/mamelist/.

In addition, RetroFE allows you to add information via info files named as collections/<collection name>/info/<item name>.conf. These files can contain lines of additional/overwriting information, e.g.

manufacturer = Konami

Information in these files will supersede information from the meta database when the overwriteXML parameter in the [[global_settings.conf|global settings.conf]] file is set.


===== HyperSpin xml files =====

HyperSpin xml files are xml files as supported by the HyperSpin front-end. RetroFE supports the following tags (, and will ignore the rest):
  * <name>
  * <description>
  * <cloneof>
  * <manufacturer>
  * <developer>
  * <year>
  * <genre>
  * <rating>
  * <score>
  * <players>
  * <ctrltype>
  * <buttons>
  * <joyways>


===== emuArc (super)dat files =====


emuArc (super)dat files are xml files as supported by the emuArc group. RetroFE supports the following tags (, and will ignore the rest):
  * <rootdir> This subtag of the header tag defines the collection name used for the meta database.
  * <game>
  * <description>
  * <publisher>
  * <developer>
  * <year>
  * <genre>
  * <ratings>
  * <score>
  * <players>
  * <cloneof>

===== MAME xml files =====

MAME xml files are the output of the -listxml output of MAME.