gotcha. I might use python, I really like it, and it's easy to use.I've got my xml stuff planned out, I just need to figure out how I'm going to set it up, I need to store the type of data if I use a variant of sorts, I think.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 3:38 PMSubject: RE: game development question:reading and writing game data to and from files
It is better to embed a known language for example python or interpreted c or pearl. The reason is documents. How many builders do you think will stop to learn a proprietary language. I can tell you from experiencebecause I have a language called DIL in our mud it is a mix of c++, pascal, and old basic. If I would have went with something like Java or Python thenthe tutorials would have already been written but writing my own languagemeans any documentation or tutorials must come from me. I can tell you I amabout to change to a multi language binding and in the long run drop my proprietary language fully because of documentation.If you're looking for bison documents though you can search for yacc it wasthe original and everything that works in Yacc works in Bison. Just try searching for bison tutorials or yacc tutorials I know that might get yousome strange results so add grammar to that search and you should find whatyour looking for. Ken Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tyler Littlefield Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 3:15 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: Re: game development question:reading and writing game data to andfrom files I keep thinking of things, so I guess I'll keep replying. I'd still like to find some bison resources; I'd rather not have to get my builders to learn c++ before they can build. It would be cool to have aproprietary sort of language though so that I wouldn't have to mess with thebuilders in c++ thing. I'd thought about making it work with python scripts, but that looks like more trouble than it's worth, and I don't know perl to use that.----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:04 PMSubject: RE: game development question:reading and writing game data to andfrom filesI use Bison and Flex in my current mud engine which is still one of the fewcommercial ones left. I find it is too much work keeping up the grammar though and I am slowly converting to an xml / mysql based file system. Right now I have a full compiler that compiles the zone files and proprietary functional language into a binary structure and a parser thatreads the player files but over the years I have come to find that it wouldbe much easier as a relational database that would allow much quicker look up with less memory use. I am not saying bison and flex is not a good choice if you really want to get down and dirty but I am saying if your thinking of running your game server on multi platforms like Windows and Linux it is easier to havesomething like a relational database underneath than porting the file systemstuff over each operating system. Now with that said if you must build everything from ground up I would really look into Boost and the serialization library over writing a parserwith Bison and flex there are limitations to the type of parser you will getout of bison but you won't find those till much later in your development. A game like a mud is well fitted to a relational database and an xmlinterface. You could easily use xml to both interface with the players and to create web page interfaces with the game like clan pages that could listwho was on and clan standings or quest hints and help pages. Again youcould do this by creating your own file systems but you are then reinventinga lot of code that has been done for you if you were to use something like c++ bindings, mysql and php, python, or pearl as the mud languages for scripting.. I can tell you when changes have been made to the g++ compiler over the years I have spent more time fixing my bison grammar and c++ problems withthe file systems then I have actually adding to the game. You want to make the base code easy enough to upkeep that you will have time to add features to the game for your users. I just don't want to see you get to where I amand have to re-engineer your game server while your players wait for those features they have been asking for. Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Cox Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:49 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: Re: game development question:reading and writing game data to andfrom files In general, for complex databases, I prefer to write custom reader/writers using bison/flex. An ASCII file that mirrors your classes well has many advantages. You can edit it easily, and it's fairly simple to maintain backwards compatibility with previous versions. Bill On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Tyler Littlefield<tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:hmm, so I would store the pointer to an int/string/double. I need to be able to tell what it is though, no? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 10:36 AM Subject: RE: game development question:reading and writing game data toandfrom filesThe map definitely handles this bro. Just don't make it a map of primative to primative, make it a map of primative to object. That object can be of any type you like. Take care, Sina ________________________________ From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tyler Littlefield Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:18 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: game development question:reading and writing game data to and from files Hello all,I've started work on a custom mud, and am trying to figure something out.Each player will have a set of keys that will be stored, name, connect time, creation time, etc. I was thinking of storing these in a map, but that requires that the map hold multiple values; something which the c++ map doesn't do. So, I'm trying to figure something out. I'd like to be able to store player data, and a list of the player's inventory so the objects can be recreated when the player connects somehow. I would need to store object type, name, etc etc. I'm not quite sure how I could achieve this easily; I could possiblyitterate through the map once I've gotten the data type thing figured outand do something like write key=value. Then when I loaded it I could just strtok on the = and set that up, but I'm not quite sure how I'd handle inventory and that. This is the only snag I'm having so far, and I'm not able to move on withoutit, as I'm to the point where I need to start saving player data, so helpwould be really appriciated at this point. :) Thanks, __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
__________View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind