Compiler Error Messages

Table of Contents

System Details

D HOW TO USE THE SYSTEM

D.1 Compiling

This version of the Alan Adventure Development System is a traditional batch compiler. This means that the actual development system is a compiler which reads text files created using any normal text editor. To compile an adventure use the following command in a command shell:

 
alan <adventure>

where <adventure> is the name of the main file containing your adventure source text. The compiler will add an extension, .alan (or .ala on PCs), if none is supplied. The option -help will give a brief help on other options to the compiler.

The output from the compiler, alan, is two files, an adventure code file adventure.acd, and an adventure data file, adventure.dat.

D.2 Compiler Switches

The compiler supports the following switches:

• -charset select the character set of the input files. This can be handy when you get a source file written on another platform, or for Windows where you edit in a Windows editor (ISO characters) and use the compiler in a DOS window (DOS characters). The option should be followed with one of the keywords iso, mac or dos
• -verbose print compiler version and other verbose messages
• -warnings show warning messages from the compilation process
• -infos show informational messages from the compilation process
• -include add a directory to the search path for included files (see Files for details on the include directive). This switch can be used multiple times, each adding a new directory
• -full give a complete listing of the source on the screen
• -height <n> use page height <n> (lines) when producing list files
• -width <n> use page width <n> (columns) when producing list files
• -debug include debugging information in the produced adventure files (same as the debug option, see Options )
• -pack encode and compress the text data (same as the pack option, see Options )
• -summary produce a summary about number of actors, size of adventure files, timing information etc.
• -dump print the internal form (developers use only)

Giving an extra hyphen before the option reverses its meaning, e.g. --warnings means don't show warnings. Switches may be abbreviated.

D.3 Running the Adventure

To play the generated adventure the Alan interpreter, arun, is executed with the adventure name as a parameter.

 
arun <adventure>

No extension on the adventure name is allowed.

If the interpreter program is copied to a different name it will look for code and data files with the same name. Any parameters or switches will be ignored. For example, by copying the arun program to adventure the interpreter will, when started under the new name, directly look for the files adventure.acd and adventure.dat . The three files adventure , adventure.acd and adventure.dat thus makes a complete game package which is easy to start using the single command:

 
> adventure

D.4 Interpreter Switches

The interpreter supports the following switches:

• -v print interpreter version
• -d print interpreter version and enter debug mode
• -i ignore CRC and version errors in the adventure files
• -t trace sections executed
• -s show single instruction trace
• -l log all player command in a logfile in the current directory

In later versions an interactive development environment is envisioned but this is still far away. So you have to be content with the debugging support described in Debugging for now.