I7 - Morichs claws?

Authoring Inform 7
1

I’m trying to let the player interact with Morichs claws. I think it would be smartest if the intepreter isn’t too pedantic, and understand all of this:

Look at Morich claws
Look at Morich’s claws
Look at Morichs claws

However, I can’t get the last one to work. Also, I’m wondering if there isn’t some smarter way to do it. My code:

[code]Include Possession and Ownership by Shadow Wolf.

A monster is a kind of person.
Some claws are a kind of thing.
Some claws are part of every monster.
Some claws are privately-named.
The description of some claws is usually “They look killer.”.

Understand “[something related by reversed incorporation] claws” as claws. [works!]
Understand “[something related by reversed incorporation]'s claws” as claws. [works!]
Understand “[something related by reversed incorporation]s claws” as claws. [Should catch “Morichs claws” but don’t]

The Cell is a room.
Morich is a monster in the Cell.
The description of Morich is “You see something special about Morich.”
[/code]

2

[code]A monster is a kind of person.

claws are a kind of thing. some claws are part of every monster.

The description of claws is usually “They look killer.”

The Cell is a room.

Morich is a monster in Cell.
The description of Morich is “You see something special about Morich.”

Grategna is a monster in Cell. Grategna is female.
The description of Grategna is “Her hands…”

The description of Grategna’s claws is “Her hands end in pointy talons.”

Understand “hand/hands/hands” as claws.

some hands are a kind of thing.
my hands are hands. My hands are part of the player. The printed name is “your hands”. Understand “hand” as hands.

Understand “morich/morichs” as claws when the item described is held by morich.

Understand “her” as the a thing when the item described is held by a female.

Understand “his” as a thing when the item described is held by a male.
[/code]

3

Thank for the re-write! But dang it - my head just can’t get around this stuff. Possesion IS hard!

4

It gets easier when you upgrade it so it uses less salts. Also, possessing humans is usually better than possessing machines.

(sorry, couldn’t resist)

5

I mean, it’s a fifth-dot Discipline. And if it isn’t in-clan it costs even more experience.

6

On the plus side, it is nine-tenths of the law.

7

Ahem, anyhow … most I7 code is easy to understand, but I just don’t get what is going down here:

Understand "morich/morichs" as claws when the item described is held by morich.

Why should ‘Morich’ be understood as claws? As I see it, this would mean that “Morich claws” was being interpreted as ‘Claws claws’.

8

Interpreting it as “Claws claws” is fine, though. The way the parser works, if you have a sequence of words that all individually match an object, then it matches to the object no matter what order they’re in. So Inform is like “Morichs” = claws, check, “Claws” = claws, check, those two words together must mean the claws!

An example of how this works: when you do a disambiguation, it inserts your disambiguation response into the command. So if you type this:

x box
Which do you mean, the red box or the blue box?

red box

then the next command it tries to parse is actually “x red box box.” (If I remember correctly.) Since “red,” “box,” and “box” all match the red box, it knows that three-word sequence is the red box, and it’ll give you the red box’s description.

If you want to make sure the two words are in the right order, you need to do something like this:

Understand "morichs claws" as claws when the item described is held by morich.

and that’ll match “morichs claws” but not “claws morichs.” But you almost never have to worry about this. It’s OK if the parser understands “claws morichs,” because the player will never type that, and if they do then having it go to morich’s claws is the best outcome anyway.

9

Actually I didn’t know the parser just creates duplicate words and then matches things that way.

So now, in this new world you’ve put me in, the bit I don’t get is ‘the item described’, as in -

Understand "morichs claws" as claws when the item described is held by morich.
If the parser is still trying to work out what item you’re talking about, how can it refer to that item for help?

-Wade

10

“The item described” is the thing it’s trying to match against. When the parser needs to fill in a noun from a sequence of words it runs through each object in scope, then through the grammar for that object, to see if it matches. The item described specification there is saying not to compare against “morichs claws” for every claws object, only ones being held by Morich.

11

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Thanks.

-Wade

12

I second this! :slight_smile: