XeePhotoshopLoader.m – xee – Google Code

Best. Comment. Ever.

        while([fh offsetInFile]+12<=imageoffs)
        {
                uint32 sign=[fh readUInt32BE];
                uint32 marker=[fh readUInt32BE];
                uint32 chunklen=[fh readUInt32BE];
                off_t nextchunk=[fh offsetInFile]+((chunklen+3)&~3);
                // At this point, I’d like to take a moment to speak to you about the Adobe PSD format.
                // PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad format. Calling it such would be an
                // insult to other bad formats, such as PCX or JPEG. No, PSD is an abysmal format. Having
                // worked on this code for several weeks now, my hate for PSD has grown to a raging fire
                // that burns with the fierce passion of a million suns.
                // If there are two different ways of doing something, PSD will do both, in different
                // places. It will then make up three more ways no sane human would think of, and do those
                // too. PSD makes inconsistency an art form. Why, for instance, did it suddenly decide
                // that *these* particular chunks should be aligned to four bytes, and that this alignement
                // should *not* be included in the size? Other chunks in other places are either unaligned,
                // or aligned with the alignment included in the size. Here, though, it is not included.
                // Either one of these three behaviours would be fine. A sane format would pick one. PSD,
                // of course, uses all three, and more.
                // Trying to get data out of a PSD file is like trying to find something in the attic of
                // your eccentric old uncle who died in a freak freshwater shark attack on his 58th
                // birthday. That last detail may not be important for the purposes of the simile, but
                // at this point I am spending a lot of time imagining amusing fates for the people
                // responsible for this Rube Goldberg of a file format.
                // Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the PSD file format. To do this,
                // I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have them consider sending
                // me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing them a copy of some document or
                // other, probably signed in blood. I can only imagine that they make this process so
                // difficult because they are intensely ashamed of having created this abomination. I
                // was naturally not gullible enough to go through with this procedure, but if I had done
                // so, I would have printed out every single page of the spec, and set them all on fire.
                // Were it within my power, I would gather every single copy of those specs, and launch
                // them on a spaceship directly into the sun.
                //
                // PSD is not my favourite file format.

                if(sign!=’8BIM’) break; // sanity check

Thanks, Josh, for the link.