[I7] Examining multiple persons

Authoring Inform 6 and 7
#1

Hi,

I have a room with 10 Miners. I want a way to examine them with one command and get a list of each miners description.

"Mining"


A Miner is a kind of person. A Miner is either on break, on his way to work or working. A Miner is usually working.

A Mine is a kind of room.
Mining Section A is a Mine. "A gold mine." 

There are 10 Miners in Mining Section A.

Instead of examining someone:
	if person is a Miner (called worker):
		if worker is on break:
			say "[one of]He looks at you like you don't belong here[or]He's eating a brownish looking nutrient paste[or]Behind all the dirt there appears to be a face[at random].";
		otherwise if worker is working: 
			say "He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!";
		otherwise: 
			say "He's on his way back to work.";
		

When play begins:
	repeat with R running through rooms:
		repeat with M running through each person in R:
			if M is a Miner:
				if a random chance of 1 in 2 succeeds and M is working:
					now M is on break;


Understand "examine [things]" as examining.

[
Carry out looking at a group:
	repeat with P running through each person in noun:
		try examining P;
	
Understand "look at [things]" as looking at a group;
]

TEST ME with "examine miners"

But this version seems to pick one miner, looking up his state and then prints either 10 descriptions for a working miner or 10 descriptions for a miner who is on his break. Like this:

>[1] examine miners
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!
Miner: He's doing what he is supposed to do: he mines!

>[1] examine miners
Miner: He's eating a brownish looking nutrient paste.
Miner: Behind all the dirt there appears to be a face.
Miner: He's eating a brownish looking nutrient paste.
Miner: Behind all the dirt there appears to be a face.
Miner: He looks at you like you don't belong here.
Miner: Behind all the dirt there appears to be a face.
Miner: He looks at you like you don't belong here.
Miner: Behind all the dirt there appears to be a face.
Miner: He looks at you like you don't belong here.
Miner: He's eating a brownish looking nutrient paste.

The expected result would be to see some descriptions of a working miner and some of a miner on his break. I tested the random assignment and it is working correctly.

I tried a few other approaches (one example left in a comment block) but all result in even more of a mess.

#2

This is just one of those “I keep looking at it and it looks right” but it isn’t things. Trust me, it happens to all of us!

Instead of examining someone:
	if the noun is a Miner (called worker):

“the noun”, not “person”.

Inform reads “person” as “a person” and just randomly picks one.

2 Likes
#3

Wow thanks. The last place i’d have looked for the problem :smile:

#4

You can (and should) also combine the condition into the rule heading itself:

Instead of examining a Miner (called worker):

This will prevent the rule triggering on someone other than a miner, which would (as written above) result in aborting the standard examining rules without printing anything (since it’s an Instead rule, which stops the action by default).

It’s possible to fix that inside general rules that have internal conditions, but it’s better to use more specific rules.

3 Likes