Zugg Software :: View topic

Newbie Joined: 14 Apr 2014 Posts: 4

I've been told that database curing in the IRE muds is among the fastest there is, however, right now I'm using their gmcp and curing before I get the actual affliction message.

My question, would it be worth it to start in on database curing?

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Let's break down your query a bit.

1)GMCP is just data coming to you from the game. It does not DO anything, like figure out what is the cure or where you might have said cure stashed. There's no speed disadvantage or advantage to it, beyond the fact that the data is organized and/or complete enough that you don't have to do any further processing like you would when triggering off affliction messages.

2)curing is a script concept, on the same general plane as highlights and sound triggers. It is much more complex than those simple examples, but scripts don't actually work if there's no data to be worked on.

3)databases come in three flavors in CMud: relational databases, the legacy DB module databases, and datarecord variables. By far the fastest of the group are the relational databases, using an external database management system (DBMS) such as SQL (CMud uses SQLite, but CMud Pro also lets you use other DB formats such as MySQL, Oracle, and so forth). This feature (aside from the very obvious lack of a visual interface), is pretty much the same as a Database Management IDE such as MS Access. The next best thing is the legacy DB module, the one that was created in ZMud (in CMud, it's literally the ZMud code with any problem areas not yet fixed programmatically walled-off so they don't crash CMud). This feature is more akin to the even older sequential/random-access files from the DOS days, using a proprietary flatfile format that merely mimics database features. It's great for moderately large amounts of data that doesn't quite fit into variables, but for really large datasets you really want the relational DB features. Datarecord variables are essentially a smaller variation of the legacy DB module, meant for really tiny datasets.