Zugg Software :: View topic - [3.04 Bug] ansi variables and xml will not copy/paste

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:46 pm

This probably happens in earlier versions, though I never really attempted to verify because I hadn't noticed this until when I tried to copy a database variable to a friend's computer.

1. #VAR test {%ansi(red)abcd}
2. Open package editor.
3. Select the variable, then copy using right-click/copy or Ctrl+C.
4. Go ahead and delete the variable.
5. Try pasting the copied text. It will come up with an error.

If you look at the xml code, you'll see where the ansi is, it's horrible, and won't conform to xml standard. My guess is that the escape codes aren't recognized or being properly parsed.

If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. It sucks when you have a database that holds a lot of information copied only to find out you no longer can paste it. I don't know if there is something that can be done, though, and I haven't tested it with export/import yet. If no answers before I get home, I'll test it then.

Charneus

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:26 pm

In general, variables do not support storing control codes like that. It's also possible that when these control codes are saved to the database that there might be problems. So it might not just be an XML issue. Variables are meant to hold string values and not control code. But I'll add it to the bug list to look at in the future.

Export/Import will have the same problem since it uses the same XML format as the copy/paste

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:50 pm

I figured it would, but wasn't sure.

As far as control codes and variables go, I suppose I could write a function to colorize the outptut the way I want it to be, probably a regex of some sort. Thanks for the info regarding this, though. I'm glad it will be on the bug list, though.

Charneus

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:00 pm

Actually, I just looked into this and I can't get it to fail. The XML encoding is working fine for control codes. If I type your example on the command line:

#VAR test {%ansi(red)abcd}

and then open the settings editor, click on the "test" variable, and look in the XML tab, it properly shows:

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 2:41 am

Interesting. It only appears to be this certain database...

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Examining both your code and the produced variable I see a mismatched quote on this line:

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:19 am

I simplified the above because it turns out just one line is all that's needed to replicate this.

Thanks for pointing out the missing quotes, though. I went through and found about 4 others I had missed. However, even getting it down to the barebones, I still have the problem, and this one is quoted out perfectly.

I thought it might be that the values were not holding quotes, so I doubled up the quotes so that the value would contain them. Still didn't work.

Charneus

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:57 pm

I'll add this to the bug list, but what you are doing is a *really* bad idea. It's bad enough putting control characters into variables, but now you are storing control characters into hashed string list database variables?? All variables must be stored as plain string values to be stored into the database. So database variables are stored as "key1=value1|key2=value2|...etc". When CMUD reads a database variable from the database, it gets this string value and then has to parse it to create the hash table for the key/value lookup. This is when CMUD parses for quotes, the | delimiter, and the = delimiter. Adding control characters to the mix adds even more complications. These string lists were never designed to hold control characters.

You really just need to convert your script to use MXP colors instead of ansi colors. That will allow you to use even more different colors and gets away from all of the control code issues.

As I said, I'll still add this to the bug list, but this problem is so specific to your scripts that it's not something the vast majority of users will even encounter. So it's not going to be a big priority unless it turns out to be a trivial fix.

Magician Joined: 17 Apr 2005 Posts: 496

Hey Zugg, I haven't ever actually experienced this problem, but I do definitely store ANSI stuff in variables (sometimes even db vars). Imperian uses colors to differentiate between different kinds of messages, so for example:

<grey>line of room description
<grey>continuation of room description
<grey>continuation of room description
<grey>continuation of room description <pink>written description of items in the room
<pink>continuation of items
<pink>continuation of items <brown>special notes about the room

And so on. Since nothing is guaranteed (any section may start on the previous line of another section, and you may have any number of lines per section) I just grab every line from the last line that I know (the room name) until the next prompt, store it all in a variable, and then parse through the variable to get the things I want, formatted how I want.

Anyway, just sayin' it's used for things.

Magician Joined: 17 Apr 2005 Posts: 496

P.S. I am deep in a Java project at the moment, and it just struck me that what CMud really needs is a profiler for scripts. With pretty graphs, like NetBeans uses.

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:25 pm

Dream on.

Sorry, but for a one-person project that only costs $30, you are already getting more functionality and value than with most any other software I can think of. Give me millions of customers like Java has, with businesses who are willing to pay for support for open-source software (like NetBeans, Eclipse, etc), with hundreds of developers to help write the code, and then we can talk.

Back on the original topic: All I was saying is that storing control codes is generally a bad idea, and you might encounter problems. It might work fine for you and what you are doing, but obviously Charneus ran into a problem with the xml import/export that you might not have been doing. This is just a case of people using a feature in CMUD for something that it wasn't designed or intended to handle, so you might run into issues with it.

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:37 pm

Hmmm... I should have learned by now with the %ansi and mxp stuff. *shrug*

I guess I just get lazy at times and then forget about mxp, especially since I have to have the closing tag on it. Thanks for pointing that out, though. I'll definitely be rewriting some scripts now.

Charneus