Local Character set "CP437" Error

I keep getting the following error when I run my T3 games:

[Warning: no mapping file is available for the local character set “CP437”…

I have looked around but haven’t found anything that resolves the issue yet. All my game files begin with:

#charset “us-ascii”
#include <adv3.h>
#include <en_us.h>

Shouldn’t this set the game to use the ASCII character set?

Thanks!

I think so, provided that the #charset directive is on the first line of the file with no spaces before it.

It’s a weird message, though, because you should have a cp437.tcm character map that was installed along with the compiler. What distribution are you using - the Workbench or frobtads?

Does your source code contain any extended ASCII characters? That’s anything from row 8 on, in the code page 437 table.

I don’t know what happens if you specify ASCII but include higher characters.

Workbench - but I’m using t3make/run within my dev folder - so I haven’t installed workbench on this machine. It sounds like I need to reinstall workbench then. But when I redistribute the game, does that mean the player would have to run a tads install? I was hoping to make it portable if possible (actually would like to let them play it online but it sounds like that can’t be done in T3).

Thanks for the help!

Online play is just around the corner; see this discussion.

The character maps are what the TADS 3 compiler uses to transform text written in any given encoding into UTF-8. All text strings in a T3 file are guaranteed to be UTF-8.

Your players will need an interpreter of some kind, which could mean an install (frob, gargoyle) or not. If you package the game as a Windows executable, it wraps it in an interpreter for you. This interpreter handles the job of displaying the UTF-8 text, and it’s not something you need to worry about as an author.

Excellent information thank you. And the lack of web support is my one major issue with T3, so I’m excited to check that discussion out. Thanks!