Directly editing XML File - New zip (xrns) file can't be read

As a new Renoise user, and someone with zero coding experince, I’ve decided to throw myself into the deep end and am attempting to directly edit a renoise file in text editor. Silly, I know.

I am doing this because I want to use Renoise to convert environmental data into sound. Using excel I have converted a year’s worth of measurements from an oceanic wave measuring buoy into HEX values that fall within Renoise’s useable range, and with these values I am controlling FX parameters in the VCV Rack VSTi.

To date I’ve input the data manually into each line of a pattern, and I now have a working prototype. It’s slow going though and now I want to find a way to bulk input this data directly into the renoise xrns file. I have access to 20 years of data recorded in half hour increments, so yeah, an insane amount of data that I could potentially use.

My first step has been to try this on the smallest possible scale, so that I’m not changing anything coding wise, but only a single parameter value. I’ve tried it in this way:

Unzip the xrns file using unarchiver (on an M1 mac). i read that renoise files are renamed zip files, and it seems that they at least open in as zip files do.

Open the now revealed XML file in text edit.

Find a parameter in the “Lines” section of the code, and simply change this from say 6E to 6F. No other changes to code.

Save and close the XML file

Right click and compress the XML file so that it is now contained in a ZIP file. There is no sample data in the original file so no Samples folder to compress.

Change the extension on the resulting .zip file to .xrns so that it wlll open in Renoise.

When I go to open the file in Renoise, it recognises the extension, but won’t open the file. Error message is “Loading failed with the error:
Invalid Zip file!.”

This happens with XML files that i have unzipped and rezipped without changing the file. The edited xml files also open successfully in an XML specific editing program without errors.

If renoise files are really just renamed zip files, i don’t understand why the process wouldn’t work. There’s probably something really basic and fundamental that I’m missing here. Could it be in the way that I’m re-zipping the file?

Thanks in advance.
B

It is possible that extra information is getting added to the Zip file. This may give you some info but not really a solution. This seems to be something others have ran into; do a quick search for “zip xrns” and you will get additional posts that look like also discuss similar issues.

I tried it on my Linux machine and I got “Unknown or unsupported file type”. I also notice that the new compressed file is roughly 15KiB smaller than the original.

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There are differences in how assorted zip programs create the output. For example, on my Windows machine, I can use 7z to create a zip of Song.xml (and any other items related to it) and it works. But if I try, say, gzip (either as a port to Windows or from the WSL) it doesn’t work.

7z works from a command shell as well (I call it from a Ruby thing I wrote to build xrni files.) It’s available for Macs.

I’ve written some tools as well, and to package them I use some Ruby code with some 3rd-party zip libraries.

You may have to try various programs until you get one that works.

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The Mac zip file format was indeed the problem. Tried it on a Windows machine with 7 zip and it worked perfectly. Yet to look into 7 zip via command shell in the Mac but looks to be the way forward. Thanks to both for your help

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See also macOS 12: Can't create XRNS songs anymore with OSXs archive tool - wrong zip format

The only happens with zips created with macOS 12 and already got fixed on our side for the next maintenance release.

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