Synopsis: TEDIT - text entry database - description and usage. April 98
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:19:12 +0200 (MET DST)
From: "Erwin S. Andreasen" <erwin@pip.dknet.dk>
To: Dave Clapper <clap@wolfenet.com>
cc: Rom Mailing List <rom@rom.org>
Subject: RE: Suggestions wanted (I may regret this...)

On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Dave Clapper wrote:

> Here, here!  Removing titles was one of the first things I did when 
> starting over.  The more classes you add, the more unwieldy that table 
> becomes.  And, if I recall correctly, R's Legacy doesn't even allow 
> characters to change their titles: they have to be changed by imms.  You're 
> not the only one with this personal gripe.

Now we are on the subject of preinitialized tables of data:

I have personally moved just about everything that is an array of text or
numbers into a virtual file system. The file system part is just for
organizing it - but the idea is that something like say, a list of titles
is in a text entry (a text "file"). That text entry has name, and can be
edited (just using the standard string editor). It also saves/load from
disk.

So, the text entry that contains titles for the Mage class would be in the
file sys/titles/Mage. The code that sets the title would look something
like this:

sprintf(buf, "sys/titles/%s", class_table[ch->class_no].name);
const char *title = get_entry(buf, ch->level);

if (title)
	set_title(ch, title);

The get_entry function will find this file and get the Nth entry in it, or
return NULL. 

A few other helper functions also exist, like random_message, which picks
any random string from a given file. This is useful for a hint system for
example: the file sys/hints contains all the hints messages.. and once per
tick, a newbie with the HINT channel on just gets:
random_message("sys/hints") sent to him.

That hint system used once have 50 lines of code: load_hints, save_hints,
a function of listing current hints, one for editing and a command to do
so. All that was replaced by 1 line of code with the text file system.


So as you can see, the system is extremely powerful and can make online
editing of data much easier. I have text entries for the following things: 

time names (month, year, day, time of day), poses, various global
parameters, objects that are creatd when you cast Create Food, stat names
for str. etc stats (e.g. low, very low, average), death messages sent when
someone is killed with a certain type of weapon/spell, stories that Bards
can tell, all the greeting screens (one file contains a list with names of
greeting screens, and then a random one is picked), newbie equipment based
on class race (e.g. sys/equipment/drow is the list of EQ that drow get),
titles that newbies get, messages mobs say when they attack you after you
attacked them and fled, insults mobs shout when they kill you ... etc. 

Mobprogs can also use the text files: pick a random or set line from them,
or write to them. Admins can also use it for notes.

And finally, they can be used to temporarily create new files or
annotations to existing files (e.g. help/files/combat will add a new help
file named "combat" and help/annot/summary will append the text in there
to the 'help summary' whenever someone requests it).


Oh yeah, finding a given line in a file is fast, since the file is
indexed: the text entry contains an array containing the start offset of
each line - that array is recreated whenever someone changes the entry.

==============================================================================
Erwin Andreasen   Herlev, Denmark <erwin@pip.dknet.dk>  UNIX System Programmer
<URL:http://www.abandoned.org/drylock/>     <*>         (not speaking for) DDE
==============================================================================