This document describes the idea and setup of the Fatal Dimensions Property System.
Introduction
Development of new features to muds is often delayed due to implementation of administrative tasks, for example:
- How to load the data from files into the memory
- How to store the data in the structures of the mud
- How to view them online
- How to modify them online
- How to save the data back to disk
With loading and saving there is often the problem of versionizing, to keep track of not-yet-updated files.
The Property System of Fatal Dimensions is designed to overcome these immediatly problems. It allows builders to add newly defined features to the mud, even when the code for it is not implemented yet in the mud. It saves and loads the properties from a standard format. It displays the properties in a standard way. And it allows properties based in the following formats: characters, integer, longint, boolean and strings.
A property is a combination of a key and a variable-type, for example “name” and “string”, “level” and “integer”, “holylight” and “boolean”.
Internal setup of the Property System of Fatal Dimenions
Every item in the mud, i.e. room, chars and objects, and every item in the mud-database (the database the mobs and objects are created from) has the ability to have properties.
A property is an element of a linked list. If you want know the value of a property for a room, the room-property-list is walked through. If you want to know the value of property for a character or an object, it first looks through the list in the actual object, then through the list of the object the database.
typedef struct property_type PROPERTY;
/*
* PROPERTIES!
* see property.h for the values of type
*/
struct property_type {
PROPERTY *next; /* next property */
bool valid; /* for recycle */
int type;
char *key;
long iValue;
char *sValue;
};
struct char_data {
:
PROPERTY *property;
:
struct mob_index_data {
:
PROPERTY *property;
:
struct obj_index_data {
:
PROPERTY *property;
:
struct obj_data {
:
PROPERTY *property;
:
struct room_index_data {
:
PROPERTY *property;
:When to use and when not to use
Properties can be used best, because of the for non-frequent things.
For the coder
As interface for the coder, the following functions are available:
- SetXXXXProperty: Set the value of a property.
- GetXXXXProperty: Get the value of a property.
- DelXXXXProperty: Delete a property.
XXXX has to be replaced with Room, Object or Char.
int SetRoomProperty(ROOM_INDEX_DATA *room,int type,char *key,void *value);
int SetObjectProperty(OBJ_DATA *obj,int type,char *key,void *value);
int SetCharProperty(CHAR_DATA *ch,int type,char *key,void *value);
int SetDObjectProperty(OBJ_INDEX_DATA *obj,int type,char *key,void *value);
int SetDCharProperty(MOB_INDEX_DATA *ch,int type,char *key,void *value);
int GetRoomProperty(ROOM_INDEX_DATA *room,int object_type,char *key,void *value);
int GetObjectProperty(OBJ_DATA *obj,int object_type,char *key,void *value);
int GetCharProperty(CHAR_DATA *ch,int object_type,char *key,void *value);
int DelRoomProperty(ROOM_INDEX_DATA *room,int object_type,char *key);
int DelObjectProperty(OBJ_DATA *obj,int object_type,char *key);
int DelCharProperty(CHAR_DATA *ch,int object_type,char *key);
int DelDObjectProperty(OBJ_INDEX_DATA *obj,int object_type,char *key);
int DelDCharProperty(MOB_INDEX_DATA *ch,int object_type,char *key);SetXXXXProperty
SetXXXXProperty() replaces or adds a new property