putting comments in text file
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/putting comments in text file
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| Is it possible to have comments or bookmarks in a text file? so I dont have to open a new text file for each level data. |
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| Yes. You will just have to allow for it in your code somehow. Sorry I cannot be more specific but if you elaborate on what you want your text file to contain it would help. |
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| Sure. You could do something simple with Left$(in$,1) to see if it's ";" and if it is, ignore it. Or you could go the whole hog and use XML for your levels. |
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| To expand on what Sybixsus said; He meant to check to see if the first character in the line is a semicolon (meaning a comment), and if so then to ignore it. in$ = ReadLine("mydata.txt")
If Left$(in$, 1) <> ";"
;it's not a comment, do what you need to do
EndIf |
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| thanks thats very useful, can I hold data for 10 levels in 1 text file of would it be easier to create 10 text files? like for example ;level1 ;resources 20 ;level2 ;resources 10 i need to create bookmarks so i know where to read |
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| 1 file is all you need. Users will be less likely to mess up your program if there are fewer files to lose/corrupt. You got the right idea. |
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| i need to create bookmarks so i know where to read This isn't really necessary if you write a half decent parser. For example, this could search through the file for a line that starts with "level = ", followed by the number of the level you want to read in. Then, from that point in the file, you read in all the other settings, like "resources = 20", or whatever. However, for your situation, I think it would probably be best to simply read sequentially through the file at the start of the game and put all the values into an array of types. |
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| Have a look at jump around ( should be in the User Creations forum ) and you will see that uses XML for level data. I assume it's open source so you can also get the source code to see how the data is read. |
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| There's an XML parser somewhere in the code archives, too, but it's not very well documented. |
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| JumpAround |
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| I had a look at an XML page and it may be overkill to learn a whole new language, I think Ill tell blitz to search for keywords |
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Function Read_line(file) .label1 ine$=ReadLine$(file) If Left$(ine,1)<>";" Return ine Else Goto label1 EndIf I came up with this and it works but it doesnt read floats. How do I have comments and the ability to read floats? End Function |
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Function Read_Line$(File) ; Read a line from the given file LineFromFile$ = ReadLine$(File) ; Keep reading lines until there's a line found that doesn't start with a semicolon While Left$(LineFromFile$, 1) <> ";" ; Make sure the end of the file hasn't been reached yet If Not Eof(File) ; Read a new line LineFromFile$ = ReadLine$(File) EndIf Wend ; Return the first line without a semicolon Return LineFromFile$ End Function This function reads all kind of data. When the function returns something, it is always a string. Just do this: FloatVar# = Read_Line$(file) And Blitz converts it automatically into a float, if the line contained a float value. |
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| Personally, I use "datablocks" in my textfiles. A textfile from my game: ; This datablock containes all data about "Station01" [Station] Name = Station01 FileName = Station01.b3d Texture = Station01.bmp PositionX = -1000 PositionY = 0 PositionZ = -1000 ; This datablock containes all data about "Jumpgate01" [Jumpgate] Name = Sol system -> Wolf 359 FileName = Jumpgate.b3d Texture = Jumpgate.bmp PositionX = 2500 PositionY = 0 PositionZ = 2500 TargetSector = Wolf 359 TargetJumpgate = Wolf 359 -> Sol system Identifying datablocks isn't difficult. Also splitting up lines in the textfile (the part before and after the "="-sign). You can get my sample code here (for the above textfile): http://users.pandora.be/vge/Blitz/ReadingTextFiles.bb NOTE: This file only containes the required functions for reading the file. The custom types do not exist in there. Also, the function "ReadTextFile" automatically skips non-recognized lines (so also comments and other useless junk, you don't even need the ";") within the file, as it only scans for "known" datablocks: [Jumpgate] and [Station] The Jumpgate-type-instance is a global one in my game, with all fields set as in the function ReadDataBlock_Jumpgate. |
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| thanks guys thats good advice |
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