{{Infobox file format , name = Quetzal , logo = , icon = , iconcaption = , screenshot = , caption = , _noextcode = on , extension = {{mono, .sav, {{mono, .glksave , _nomimecode = on , mime = {{mono, application/x-glksave , type code = , uniform type = , conforms to = , magic = {{mono, IFZS , developer = Martin Frost , released = , latest release version = 1.4 , latest release date = {{Start date and age, 1997, 11, 13 , genre =

Z-machine The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code ...

save game , container for =

state , contained by = , extended from =

Interchange File Format Interchange File Format (IFF), is a generic container file format originally introduced by Electronic Arts in 1985 (in cooperation with Commodore) in order to facilitate transfer of data between software produced by different companies. IFF fil ...

, extended to = , standard
inform-fiction.org
, open = Yes , url = Quetzal is a standardised file format for the saved state of

games, invented by

Martin Frost Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...

. Prior to the introduction of Quetzal, each Z-machine interpreter saved games in its own format; Quetzal enabled players to save a game using one interpreter and restore it with another. Use of the format is strongly recommended in

Graham Nelson Graham A. Nelson (born 1968) is a British mathematician, poet, and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction (IF) games. He has authored several IF games, including ''Curses'' (1993) and ''Jigsaw'' (1995). Educati ...

's Z-machine standards document, but not obligatory. Most modern Z-machine interpreters have the ability to save Quetzal files. The files are

IFF In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (shortened as "iff") is a biconditional logical connective between statements, where either both statements are true or both are false. The connective is bicon ...

files with a FORM of "IFZS" (presumably standing for "

Interactive Fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

Z-machine Save"), although the saved files are commonly given an extension of ".sav": less commonly sighted are "quz" and "qtz". Despite the reference to the Z-machine in the FORM code, the format has proved flexible enough to be adapted for at least one alternative architecture,

Glulx Glulx is a 32-bit portable virtual machine intended for writing and playing interactive fiction. It was designed by Andrew Plotkin to relieve some of the restrictions in the venerable Z-machine format. For example, the Z-machine provides native ...

. The magic-number reading of the files are often shown as:

'IFF data, Z-machine or Glulx saved game file (Quetzal)'

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

for the format is "Quetzal Unifies Efficiently The Z-Machine Archive Language". Version 1.3b, which was widely available, contained a bug later corrected in version 1.4: after a save instruction, the Z-machine requires that a success code is saved in a particular place (which differs depending on the version). Versions of the Quetzal standard before 1.4 have reference only to the instruction ''after'' the save, which complicates finding the correct place to put the success code.

External links

Version 1.4 of the specification

Computer file formats