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Windows Alint Compendium


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Windows Alint Compendium

 

This is the write-up for notes on how to use Alint on Windows, some of this applies to the Mac version too.

 

*Alint Exe Help Notes*

 

What it does

When scenario designers want to check their scripts for errors, the program to use is Alint. It only checks scripts, it does not check the Bas file for instance.

It is not a text editor it does not check spelling or grammar.

 

Where to get it

http://kppp.webs.com/utilities.html

 

Tridash made a version of his own:

http://redsaurus.net/blades/alint(el).zip

This link found at:

http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/16804-alint/

In post "Posted 27 July 2012 - 08:42 AM #24"

It may be Mac only, I could not get it to work on Windows XP

Sylae:

[ Go look again at that "#24", you'll notice that it's actually a

permalink to that post in question. ]

 

 

How to use it: Mac

Mac version of Alint comes with help files, they appear to be adequate and should be given priority over what is written here.

According to Niemand there is a GUI version of Alint for Mac, it enables you to avoid the Command Prompt.

 

How to use it: Windows

You can't run the program by itself, unlike Blades of Avernum. Alint can only be run from the Command Prompt.

It can be placed in the scenario's folder.

Tip from Khoth: Alint can be placed in the C:\Windows directory, then it will be available for any scenario anywhere.

Celtic Minstrel:

You could also just install Alint wherever and then add it to your %PATH%, which can be done in the Control Panel under System; it varies by OS version, but on Win7 I have to go to Advanced System Settings, click the Advanced tab, and then click the Environment Variables button.

 

Start the MS-Dos Command Prompt, its shortcut should be found at: Start Menu -> Programs -> Accessories

Next, change the current directory to that of your scenario.

 

Assumptions:

Notes below are written assuming that:

all of your files and programs are found on the C: drive.

in particular they are found in the Program Files directory.

(Installing to the Program Files directory causes no problems in Windows XP but I hear it will lead to hassles in Vista. If you get hassles just install to the root C: (or whatever) directory

 

Example, Frostbite v1.0.2 by Lazarus, the Frostbite scenario is

installed at:

C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite

In the Command Prompt type:

cd C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite

Note, "cd" simply means Change Directory.

 

Sylae:

It is worth noting that, due to the unique way cmd.exe works, if you have the scenario placed on a filesystem that is different than your user profile directory's (such as a flash drive or secondary disk), you first have to put that drive letter in. So, if you're checking a scenario in E:\Profile\Games\BoA\Frostbite, you need to run the following commands:

e:\

cd \Profile\Games\BoA\Frostbite

 

You can copy the directory location and paste it into the Command Prompt.

Copy: in Windows Explorer right-click any file in the scenario directory, this brings up the Context Menu. Click on the Properties line, found at the bottom of the menu. This brings up the Properties dialog screen. Then in the General tab, look for the word "Location:". Drag the cursor across the location of the file till it is all selected, then copy it. Close the Properties dialog screen.

Paste: If you click on the little black "C\:" button in the upper left corner you can see the word Edit. Hold your cursor over that line to bring up the Edit menu. Click on Paste to paste stuff straight into the Prompt.

 

Celtic Minstrel:

On Win7 you can simply drag the file over the command prompt window, and its path will be inserted for you. I'm not sure if this'll work on XP or Vista.

Yes, this does work for XP, Vista I don't know about.

 

Tip from Khoth: It should be able to handle files with spaces in the name, if you put double quotes round the filename:

alint -w "I like spaces.txt"

Celtic Minstrel:

If you drag a file to the window, double quotes are automatically inserted for you.

 

An example of using Alint in practice:

C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite\Scripts>alint -v -w t4spring.txt

Hit Enter and Alint will check the script for errors.

After each lot of alterations, hit the Up Arrow and Enter keys till the file comes up clean.

Alint is not infallible, but between it and the Blades of Avernum game you should be able to clean up the errors. Certain errors will not be detected by Alint but the game itself will give error messages.

Note: the meanings of the switches -v and -w are explained below.

 

Alint can be used to check all files in the scenario folder. Here is an example for Frostbite.

C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite\Scripts>alint -v -w *.txt

Then you get the errors printout:

C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite>alint -v -w *.txt

Checking file 'abom.txt':

Error line 25: Illegal variable definition

Error line 122: Undeclared variable last_abil_time2

Error line 128: Undeclared variable last_abil_time2

&&&&&&&&&&&

 

Using Command Prompt is not that hard when you master the menu that appears when you click on the "C:\" icon. Ditto if you know about the DosKey hotkeys. By the way, in the Edit menu "Mark" means to select while moving in an x,y manner.

 

You can copy and paste the error reports into a document. Choose Select All or Mark to select the error reports, then hit Enter to copy the text and you are ready to paste into the file of your choice.

 

Sylae:

It's better practice to use redirection

"alint (arguments) > report.txt",

especially with cmd.exe. The standard copy/paste method you suggest injects lots of unneeded line breaks and other formatting errors compared to the original program output.

 

Celtic Minstrel:

If you get a lot of errors but don't want to redirect them to a text file, you can do something like the following:

alint -w *.txt | more

This will show the errors one screen at a time; you press space to view the next screen.

 

 

Remove any text files that are not BOA scripts, else you will be spammed with errors.

They can be placed in a folder of their own.

Sylae:

Although this does work, it would probably be better practice to work one script at a time, especially for developing. *.txt is great if you just want to open alint on someone else's scenario, say "OMG there are 1,945 bugs in this scenario" and call it a day. Meanwhile, in the real world, those will mostly be false positives and getting the entire scenario output while going through one script in particular probably isn't what you're going for.

Celtic Minstrel:

There are other ways to do this, if you know how globs work and apply some naming conventions. For example, if you name town scripts using the common naming convention of "t.txt", you can check all town scripts with something like "alint t*.txt". If you do it from powershell, you can check town and outdoor scripts at the same time with something like "alint [to]*.txt". (You enter powershell by typing "powershell" and then pressing enter. I think powershell was a separate download in XP, but it's included in Win7; no idea about Vista.)

 

DosKey Help:

at the Command Prompt type HELP DosKey, this brings up a brief help screen.

DosKey: Edits command lines, recalls Windows XP commands, and creates macros.

 

Command Prompt Help:

at the Command Prompt type Help, this brings up the list of all commands.

 

To alter the size of the Command Prompt window or to alter the amount of lines it contains at any one time:

click on the "C:\" icon. Then click on the word Properties this brings up a dialog box. In the Layout tab, Screen Buffer Size allows you to set the number of lines that the Prompt can handle, I set it to 3,000.

 

Alint Program Help Printout:

simply type "alint" or "alint.exe", omit quotes.

C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\goodevil.bas>alint.exe

Usage:alint.exe [-advwV] file ...

-a: Check all files, not just *.txt

-d: Print bison debug trace information (You don't want to do this)

-v: More verbose output

-w: Print warnings

-V: Print current version

Options only apply to files appearing after them

 

The -a switch seems to handle any type of file not just text, its description makes it sound like a second batch processing command, which it is not.

-d: Print bison debug trace information (You don't want to do this)

Celtic Minstrel:

This is more for people working on alint (ie with the source code) rather than using alint.

-v: tells you which files have been checked, normally files are only listed if they generate error or warning messages.

 

False Errors

First there is a mistake with "fl_shimmers", the Alint source code shows it as "floor_shimmers". So to Alint, the correct name "fl_shimmers" is always wrong while the wrong name "floor_shimmers" is always right.

Then te_cutaway_second_icon is spelled as "te_cutaway_second_item".

As far as I can see, the program does not recognize print_big_str_num.

These errors can't be fixed in the MS-Dos Prompt Edit command.

Then it won't accept the Sanctification state in the sanctitem.txt.

 

It seems that the Blades documentation is wrong when it says that states over 100 are not possible for towns. I haven't experimented with this much myself, but it seems to be possible to use states with numbers around, and not exceeding, 200. Of course some numbers can never be used:

INIT_STATE (equal to 0)

LOAD_SCEN_STATE (equal to 0)

EXIT_STATE (equal to 1)

START_STATE (equal to 2)

DEAD_STATE (equal to 1)

START_SCEN_STATE (equal to 111)

SEARCH_STATE (equal to 100)

TALKING_STATE (equal to 110)

UNLOCK_SPELL_STATE (equal to 101)

SANCTIFICATION_STATE (equal to 102)

BLOCK_MOVE_STATE (equal to 112)

DISPEL_BARRIER_STATE (equal to 113)

STEP_INTO_SPOT_STATE (equal to 114)

Number range may be from 115 to 199, this will need to be researched.

 

Unreported Errors

As I learned the hard way, the variables in the various calls are not checked for magnitude. Thus for put_item_on_spot it accepted an item with the number 3,840.

May not detect the absence of the "i = i + 1;" in a while statement.

Sylae:

This is a "logic error", not a "syntax error". For the most part it's the responsibility of the person writing the script to check these.

 

Understanding Error Messages.

"i" means integer, a whole number.

"s" means a string, a piece of text.

 

Have 'i', want 'ii'

Means you have one integer parameter in a BoA call but you actually need two.

Ditto, Have 'ss', want 's'

Means you have two string parameters in a BoA call but you actually need only one.

Have 'i', want ''

You have an integer parameter, but no parameter should be there at all.

 

"syntax error"

Normally these errors will be connected to the wrong use of an Avernumscript call. Check the description of the relevant call in the BoA Editor documentation, see if you entered the wrong kind of variable or whatever.

If that does not work, check all your semi-colons and parentheses.

It may simply want an Enter inserted at the end of a line.

It may also demand lower case letters in things like state names and reserved words like ACTION.

 

Text Editors

Can show line numbers

Can show which brackets or parentheses are paired, this detects errors when they should be paired but they are not.

If text file is given a C++ Syntax Type, strings and comments will be

color coded.

 

Celtic Minstrel:

In many editors you can go further and define a specific AvernumScript syntax type. I did this for TextWrangler, for example. I expect it's also possible for Notepad++, but I haven't investigated.

 

 

Running Alint from an MS-Dos batch file

Save the two lines below to a new file, give it a catch name like

Alint.bat, extension must be .bat.

CD C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Of Good and Evil2.bas

alint *.txt > AlintOGE.tbl

 

When you click on the Alint.bat batch file, the text generated is outputted to a file called AlintOGE.tbl. This can be opened in a text editor. Once it is loaded, every time the batch file is run, the prompt will occur for AlintOGE.tbl to be reloaded.

 

First line changes the directory to C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Of Good and Evil2.bas

Second line runs the batch checking function of Alint, then it outputs the data to a file called AlintOGE.tbl

 

You can choose any name you like, not just AlintOGE.tbl

 

Celtic Minstrel:

Again, put the "C:" bit on a separate line, and note that it should be replaced with whichever drive BoA is installed on. I'd also recommend giving the output file a .txt or .log extension instead of .tbl.

 

(Original Alint Readme)

 

Alint readme

 

alint is a program that checks BoA scripts for errors. It is a command-line program. If you are unfamiliar with that, read commandline.rtf for information.

 

To use it, type the command alint followed by the names of the files you want to check. It will scan those files, and report any errors it finds. If no errors are found, it will not print anything, unless you specify the "-v" option. If you have the "-w" option, it will also warn you about a few things that are not errors but probably are not what you wanted.

 

The easiest way to use it is to type "cd ", then drag the scenario's folder into the terminal window, then press return. You are now in the folder for that scenario, and you can check all the script files with "alint *" (* means "everything"), or "alint -w *"

Then, you can fix the errors it finds and recheck with up-arrow then return.

 

If you just type "alint", it will print a short description of how to use it.

 

To avoid printing spurious messages, it will only tell you about one error per line of script. Also, it doesn't really know what you were intending, and sometimes an error can cause other error messages further down. This is especially so in dialog scripts - if you miss a break after a code section, it thinks that everything until the next break is particularly bad code and spams you will errors for every line. I intend to fix this in a future version.

 

If you fix everything it finds, you should recheck to see if anything was hidden by the previous ones.

 

It is important to remember that no errors reported does not mean that there is nothing wrong with your script. There are many things that it does not check for, and it is no help at all when your script is valid but not what you intended.

 

If you find it giving an error when there isn't one, or if it fails to spot an error you think it should notice, please let me know (eet23@cam.ac.uk)

 

Errors are located by line numbers - a text editor with the ability to go to a specific line number will help you greatly. Project Builder and XCode have editors you can use, and I believe BBEdit does too. If the line given seems correct, try looking up a line or so - there may be something there, like a missing semicolon. It will never report a line number that is too small.

 

 

 

(Original Commandline file)

 

How to use the command line

 

Alint doesn't have the sort of user interface normal for Mac programs. This document explains how to use the command line.

 

To get at it, use the program "Terminal" (in the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder)

 

If you start it, you will get a window containing the command prompt - a little bit of text followed by a '$' or a '%', depending on what version of OS X you are using, and whether you changed it.

 

The text will be something like "computername:~ username$". The important part here is the "~": It shows what folder you are currently in. Files and folders are shown by a path - a listing of the subfolders you have to go through to get there. For example, the Terminal program's path is "/Applications/Utilities/Terminal".

A "~" is an abbreviation of your home folder, so the path to your music folder is "~/Music".

 

Commands

 

You do things in Terminal by typing commands. For example, the command "ls" (without the quotes) lists the files in the current folder. For many commands, you can modify them by entering options after them. These are typically a "-" followed by a letter. For example, "ls -G" will list files, and colour the names depending on what type of file they are. "ls -l" (lowercase L, not number 1) will show more detailed information about the files. You can combine them and do both, by "ls -lG" or "ls -l -G".

 

Another important command is "cd", short for "change directory". This is used to change the current folder. To use it, type "cd foldername", for example "cd Music". Then, using ls will show the files in that folder, rather than the files in your home folder. foldername here is an argument to the command. It tells cd more specifically what to do. You can use "cd .." to go back a folder, and "cd" on its own to get back to your home folder. A useful feature of Terminal is that if you drag a file or folder into the window, it will paste the path in. so you can type "cd " then drag a folder in, then press return, and you will be taken there.

 

If you press the up arrow, the last command you entered will be pasted in, and you can edit it a bit if you want before you press return to execute it.

 

Other commands

 

To get more information about a command, you can look up its manual with "man command".

Other commands are "cp" for copying files, and "mv" for moving them. Beware, as these commands will overwrite files without warning you if you copy over something.

"rm" deletes files. Use this with care, if at all.

"cat" displays the contents of a text file in the terminal window. If it's a big file, "more" gives a better display.

 

Installing alint

 

To install alint, go to the directory that it was downloaded to (using "cd"). If you listr the files (use "ls"), you should have something like:

alint

commandline.rtf

readme.rtf

install.sh

uninstall.sh

 

Install it by typing "sudo sh install.sh". You'll need to type your password here. ("sudo" is the command line equivalent of having to enter your password to change things in System Preferences etc, and "sh" runs the commands that are in the file "install.sh")

 

Then, alint will be available in any terminal window opened from now on (but not the current one)

 

Installing alint puts it in a folder (/usr/bin) which is checked when you enter a command. Now, you can use alint as a normal command.

 

Uninstalling alint

 

To uninstall, do the same thing, but "sudo sh uninstall.sh".

 

Using alint without installing it

 

If you can't or don't want to install alint, you can use it by running it from where it is. To do this, go to the folder alint is in, and run it with "./alint" ("./" means the current folder). Alternatively, from another folder, type the path to it ("~/Downloads/alint/alint", perhaps). This is less convenient, however.

 

 

Edited by Ishad Nha
merging double-post
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A couple things I noticed worth mentioning:

In post "Posted 27 July 2012 - 08:42 AM #24"

Go look again at that "#24", you'll notice that it's actually a permalink to that post in question.

 

 

also called the MS Dos Prompt.

No it isn't, unlesss you're running pre-NT Windows (hint: you're not)

 

 

CD C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite

It is worth noting that, due to the unique way cmd.exe works, if you have the scenario placed on a filesystem that is different than your user profile directory's (such as a flash drive or secondary disk), you first have to put that drive letter in. So, if you're checking a scenario in E:\Profile\Games\BoA\Frostbite, you need to run the following commands:

e:\
cd \Profile\Games\BoA\Frostbite

Also, it's proper 'style' to leave all executables and shell calls lowercase. Windows isn't case-sensitive yet, but it (terrifyingly) might be at some point, plus it makes the command more readable.

 

 

You can copy and paste the error reports into a [document]. Choose Select All or Mark to select the error reports, then hit Enter to copy the text and you are ready to paste into the file of your choice.

It's better practice to use redirection ("alint (arguments) > report.txt"), especially with cmd.exe. The standard copy/paste method you suggest injects lots of unneeded line breaks and other formatting errors compared to the original program output.

 

 

Remove any text files that are not BOA scripts, else you will be spammed with errors.

They can be placed in a folder of their own.

Although this does work, it would probably be better practice to work one script at a time, especially for developing. *.txt is great if you just want to open alint on someone else's scenario, say "OMG there are 1,945 bugs in this scenario" and call it a day. Meanwhile, in the real world, those will mostly be false positives and getting the entire scenario output while going through one script in particular probably isn't what you're going for.

 

 

(The -a switch seems not to do anything?!)

If you give it *.txt as an input, it doesn't get a chance. this is most likely so that you can do things like "alint -a t1booty.txt.WHY.ISNT.THIS.SCRIPT.WORKING" (a bit of an edge case, let's be honest)

 

 

May not detect the absence of the "i = i + 1;" in a while statement.

This is a "logic error", not a "syntax error". For the most part it's the responsibility of the person writing the script to check these.

 

(A double-post that I'm about to merge)

Okay, this is something you in particular do all the time on these forums. Unless the post is several months old (if so: ask yourself why you are necroing it), do not double-post. Obviously there are cases that are exceptions, but in this particular case (and 95% of all cases) a double-post is not warranted. Edit the existing post instead.

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You can't run the program by itself, unlike Blades of Avernum. Alint can only be run from the Command Prompt, also called the MS Dos Prompt.

Like Sylae said, the MS Dos Prompt is "command.com", but in Windows XP and above you'll instead be using "cmd.exe".

 

Tip from Khoth: Alint can be placed in the C:\Windows directory, then it will be available for any scenario anywhere.
You could also just install Alint wherever and then add it to your %PATH%, which can be done in the Control Panel under System; it varies by OS version, but on Win7 I have to go to Advanced System Settings, click the Advanced tab, and then click the Environment Variables button.

 

Example, Frostbite v1.0.2 by Lazarus, the Frostbite scenario is installed at:

C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite

In the Command Prompt type:

CD C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Frostbite Win\Frostbite

Side note, it's probably not ideal to install BoA in Program Files, since access to that directory is somewhat restricted. Also, that CD line is not sufficient to get to the directory - you need to also type "C:" and press enter in order to set the active drive. (It might work for you that way since C is probably the default drive, but people who install BoA on another drive would find your instructions don't work.)

 

You can copy the directory location and paste it into the Command Prompt.

Copy: in Windows Explorer right-click any file in the scenario directory, this brings up the Context Menu. Click on the Properties line, found at the bottom of the menu. This brings up the Properties dialog screen. Then in the General tab, look for the word "Location:". Drag the cursor across the location of the file till it is all selected, then copy it. Close the Properties dialog screen.

Paste: If you click on the little black "C\:" button in the upper left corner you can see the word Edit. Hold your cursor over that line to bring up the Edit menu. Click on Paste to paste stuff straight into the Prompt.

On Win7 you can simply drag the file over the command prompt window, and its path will be inserted for you. I'm not sure if this'll work on XP or Vista.

 

Remove spaces from the titles of all files being scanned, otherwise you can't get the program to recognize the files.

Tip from Khoth: It should be able to handle files with spaces in the name, if you put quotes round the filename:

alint -w "I like spaces.txt"

Don't tell people to remove spaces from the filenames, just say they need to enclose the names in double quotes if there are spaces. If you drag a file to the window, double quotes are automatically inserted for you.

 

Using Command Prompt is not that hard when you master the menu that appears when you click on the "C:\" icon.

That's called the system menu, and the things in there aren't particularly important for using the command prompt unless you want to copy stuff from the terminal. Which is probably not the best way to do what you want here, as Sylae pointed out; redirection is probably better. An additional note - if you get a lot of errors but don't want to redirect them to a text file, you can do something like the following:

 

alint -w *.txt | more

 

This will show the errors one screen at a time; you press space to view the next screen.

 

Ditto if you know about the hotkeys.
You say this, but give no indication about what hotkeys you mean.

 

Remove any text files that are not BOA scripts, else you will be spammed with errors.

They can be placed in a folder of their own.

There are other ways to do this, if you know how globs work and apply some naming conventions. For example, if you name town scripts using the common naming convention of "t<num><name>.txt", you can check all town scripts with something like "alint t*.txt". If you do it from powershell, you can check town and outdoor scripts at the same time with something like "alint [to]*.txt". (You enter powershell by typing "powershell" and then pressing enter. I think powershell was a separate download in XP, but it's included in Win7; no idea about Vista.)

 

DosKey Help:

at the Command Prompt type HELP DosKey, this brings up a brief help screen.

Sorry, what on earth is "DosKey"? Or are you telling people to type "help doskey"?

 

-d: Print bison debug trace information (You don't want to do this)
This is more for people working on alint (ie with the source code) rather than using alint.

 

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(Double-posting due to quotes per post limit)

 

It seems that the Blades documentation is wrong when it says that states over 100 are not possible for towns.
I'm guessing it does this because states 100 and above are used for special events, so if you use these states you'll get unexpected results. For example, you might innocently define state 102 for general use, and then wonder why it triggers when someone casts Ritual of Sanctification on the space. Thus, only states under 100 are guaranteed to be safe for general use, states 100 and above are reserved for special use.

 

These states can never be called from placed specials.
I'm actually curious, has this been confirmed?

 

If text file is given a C++ Syntax Type, strings and comments will be color coded.
In many editors you can go further and define a specific AvernumScript syntax type. I did this for TextWrangler, for example. I expect it's also possible for Notepad++, but I haven't investigated.

 

Running Alint from an MS-Dos batch file

Save the two lines below to a new file, give it a catch name like Alint.bat, extension must be .bat.

CD C:\Program Files\Blades of Avernum\Blades of Avernum Scenarios\Of Good and Evil2.bas

alint *.txt > AlintOGE.tbl

Again, put the "C:" bit on a separate line, and note that it should be replaced with whichever drive BoA is installed on. I'd also recommend giving the output file a .txt or .log extension instead of .tbl.

 

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An awful lot of comments I will need to review at my leisure.

 

You emphatically can run scenario states greater than 100, if they are not reserved for things like START_STATE through STEP_INTO_SPOT_STATE, you can't however use them for external things like item properties. Internally you can run them from states 10 through 99.

As I recall you can use unreserved town states from 100 to 255 but you can't use them in placed specials.

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You emphatically can run scenario states greater than 100, if they are not reserved for things like START_STATE through STEP_INTO_SPOT_STATE, you can't however use them for external things like item properties. Internally you can run them from states 10 through 99.

Can you be more precise what you mean here? Obviously it's possible to run states >= 100; the existence of the special states proves this. I'm guessing that, by "run", you mean you can jump to the state from another state? What do you mean by "use for external things"? Are you saying you can't make an item that calls a special state 100 or greater? Have you verified this? Have you verified you can't use them in placed specials? If so, is this because the editor doesn't allow it, or because the game doesn't allow it? (If the editor doesn't allow it but the game does, then the editor could be altered to allow it, and it would work; this could be tested by hex-editing a scenario file, probably.)

 

This is mostly a matter of curiosity, though maybe it should be in a separate thread...

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I'm guessing that, by "run", you mean you can jump to the state from another state?

- Yes.

What do you mean by "use for external things"?

- Anything outside the script concerned

Are you saying you can't make an item that calls a special state 100 or greater? Have you verified this?

- It seems like that you can use it, odd, I thought that did not work.

Have you verified you can't use them in placed specials?

Ditto, that works when I could not get it to work before. I used a state of 123, which is not reserved. 223 failed, it might stop working at around state number 200.

This is something you can research yourself.

 

Celtic Minstrel:

"On Win7 you can simply drag the file over the command prompt window, and its path will be inserted for you. I'm not sure if this'll work on XP or Vista."

Yes, this does work for XP

 

" *.txt is great if you just want to open alint on someone else's scenario, say "OMG there are 1,945 bugs in this scenario""

If there are hundreds of bugs in a scenario, it seems the author could benefit from using the batch command?

 

"Sorry, what on earth is "DosKey"? "

DosKey: Edits command lines, recalls Windows XP commands, and creates macros.

Here are the hot keys:

UP and DOWN ARROWS recall commands;

ESC clears command line;

F7 displays command history;

ALT+F7 clears command history;

F8 searches command history;

F9 selects a command by number;

ALT+F10 clears macro definitions.

Edited by Ishad Nha
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  • 1 month later...

Alint source code can be compiled with Flex or Bison. Sourceforge has freeware Flex and Bison compilers for Windows.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/winflexbison/?source=directory

Don't see any help files anywhere in the download.

On the Files page I was able to find a flex_bison_doc download, hopefully that will tell me how the program works.

 

If the source can be compiled that will be handy. Known errors of spelling, for example "floor_shimmers", can be easily fixed.

In the long run we may be able to introduce other improvements too.

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So, only those four errors? (I'm ignoring the "unreported" section for now.)

 

What should be the signature for print_big_str_num? (That is, the ssi type stuff.)

 

Then it won't accept the Sanctification state in the sanctitem.txt.

Huh? What do you mean by this? It does accept SANCTIFICATION_STATE as a number... Edited by Celtic Minstrel
Wait what?
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Ah, what I meant is that SANCTIFICATION_STATE is in the lex.l file... I'll double-check, maybe it was misspelled. How does print_big_str_num work, by the way? I don't see it in the docs.

 

EDIT: When I said it accepts it as a number, I meant it accepts SANCTIFICATION_STATE to be valid and considers it to be a number.

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Hm, I'm not getting errors on sanctitem.txt in The Za-Khazi Run...

 

One more question - do set_flag and set_sdf both work correctly? (In the game, I mean.)

 

Also, you still haven't answered this:

How does print_big_str_num work, by the way? I don't see it in the docs.

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"Hm, I'm not getting errors on sanctitem.txt in The Za-Khazi Run..."

I am getting the error on my copy of it. So it is a fault in my version of Alint or there is an issue with my system.

 

"How does print_big_str_num work, by the way? I don't see it in the docs."

Now, print_big_str_num is found in the Wiki:

print_big_str_num(string str,short num,string str2,short color)

Like print_big_str, but gives the text a different color. Colors are listed in the description of print_str_color.

(One of the print color calls does not print the color, is this the one?)

Its si format is supposedly: sisi

 

"One more question - do set_flag and set_sdf both work correctly? (In the game, I mean.)"

In all four Spiderweb scenarios they are both used, the former is used far more than the latter.

Edited by Ishad Nha
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