File formats

Assyst reads the legacy text and binary formats of the Windows program Assist and writes its own lossless .qsze format.

QST / TXT

Plain text. A line starting with ? begins a question, + marks a correct answer, - an incorrect one. Multi-line text is allowed. One + makes a single-choice question, several make a multiple-choice question. UTF-8 (with or without BOM), UTF-16 and Windows-1251 are detected on import.

Gap questions keep the missing words inside the question text as ***[answer]***, so even the plain .qst export stays readable.

?Question text (may span several lines)
+Correct answer
-Incorrect answer
-Incorrect answer
+Another correct answer

?Capital of Kazakhstan is ***[Astana]***
+Astana

QSZ

The legacy binary format: a zlib stream in which each question is stored as an int32 length and text, an answer count, and per-answer text with a flag (−1 correct, 0 incorrect). Only choice questions can be represented.

zlib stream, repeated per question:
  int32  question length L
  bytes  question text (L)
  int32  answers count N
  × N:
    int32  answer length
    bytes  answer text
    int32  flag  (-1 correct, 0 incorrect)

QSZE

The native format: zlib, little-endian int32 numbers, UTF-8 strings. It stores the test name, author, version, dates, question groups, all six question types, help texts and embedded images for both questions and answers. This is the format to use when you want nothing lost.

zlib stream, int32 little-endian, str = int32 len + UTF-8
Header
  int32 format_version (= 1)
  str   test_name
  str   author
  int32 test_version
  int32 created_at (unix seconds)
  int32 updated_at (unix seconds, 0 if never)
Groups
  int32 groups_count
  str[] group_name
Questions
  int32 questions_count
  × questions_count:
    int32 group_id   (0 = no group, else 1-based)
    int32 type       (0 test, 1 order, 2 fill_text,
                      3 fill_number, 4 misses_type, 5 misses_select)
    str   text
    str   prompt
    int32 images_count,  blob[] image
    int32 answers_count
    × answers_count:
      int32 is_correct   (only when type == 0)
      str   text
      int32 images_count, blob[] image