Having a problem with a Table of Conversation topic entry. Is there something that represents a space?

Authoring Inform 7
1

I have a table for asking an npc about various things. It all works fine except for some topics. Any of them that have multiple entries for their topic work except if one of those entries has a space in it.

Currently a lot my table looks like this:

Table of Artimus Conversation
topic	reply	summary
"Artimus/himself"	"'That's my name. I've been here a long time.'"	"Some things about Artimus."
"the tents"	"None of the tents are mine, I'd stay out of them."	"About the tents"
"tent/tents"	"None of the tents are mine, I'd stay out of them."	"About the tents"

But there has to be some way to combine the “the tents” and “tent/tents” into “the tents/tent/tents” right? Am I missing something simple that can represent a space to put between the and tents?

I’m new to both Inform 7 and the IF forum. Thank you for your help and your patience. :slightly_smiling_face:

2

What you need is to make the “the” optional, so one entry corresponds to every possible iteration of the tent, tent, the tents, tents, etc. The way to do this in Inform is with a double dash, which indicates that a blank will satisfy the syntax in addition to the specific named words. So “the/— tent/tents” should get you where you’re going!

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3

Out of curiosity, is this some extension you’re using? Or are you rolling your own?

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