Avoiding large-game crashes in 6G60

Authoring Inform 7
1

The Inform 6 compiler that shipped with I7 6G60 had some serious bugs that could crop up in large games. (See this thread, for example: https://intfiction.org/t/memory-settings/6663/1)

You could always work around this by compiling a newer I6 compiler, but not everybody wants to dig that deep.

Happily the new I7 6L02 comes with the latest I6 technology. So you can transplant this back into your 6G60 application and gain the benefits.

On the Mac, I did this on the command line:

cp "/Applications/Local Apps/Inform-7/Inform-6L02.app/Contents/Resources/Compilers/inform6" "/Applications/Local Apps/Inform-7/Inform-6G60a.app/Contents/Resources/Compilers/inform-6.32-biplatform"

…although you probably named your I7 apps something slightly different, so you’ll have to adjust that.

On Windows I believe the filenames are “inform-632.exe” and “inform6.exe”.

This will not require any changes in your code, except possibly updating the memory settings. The only behavior change will be that the I6 compiler won’t crash, and will properly report memory setting overruns so that you can update them.

2

Is the new executable available as a standalone download from the IF Archive? If not, would it be appropriate to add it there?

(I’m assuming the Dec 2010 version available already at ifarchive.org/indexes/if-arc … ables.html is the one included in 6G60.)

3

Yes, at some point the new version should be released at inform7.com/sources/i6n/ and the Archive.

4

I’ll make a formal release of Inform 6.33 to the IF-Archive, once I get round to pulling in the fix for http://inform7.com/mantis/view.php?id=1267.

5

For anybody who wishes to do as zarf suggests in a Windows environment but needs step-by-step instructions:

  1. Download the new Windows I6 compiler executable from the IF Archive at ifarchive.org/if-archive/inf … _win32.zip (or a suitable mirror)

  2. Find the directory containing the older I6 compiler executable (a file called “inform-632.exe”). The typical location on Windows 7 would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Inform 7\Compilers\ - you can use the Windows search function to find the file if you don’t see it there

  3. Rename the current executable from “inform-632.exe” to something else, like “inform-632-orig.exe” (so you can change back, if desired)

  4. Extract the new version of the executable from its ZIP file to the same folder – the new file is called “inform6.exe”

  5. Rename the extracted file from “inform6.exe” to “inform-632.exe”

That should do the trick! Open up an Inform 7 project and click the “Go” button to test.

Thanks to zarf and David Kinder for the news and the update.