The basics of parsing

Authoring Inform 7
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I’ve finished a draft document that explains the basics of parsing in Inform 7, which provides an overview of various undocumented and lightly-documented aspects of the parsing process. It’s about 30 pages long, with discussion of six example scenarios.

The target audience is an intermediate user of the language (especially those having trouble getting the parser to do what they want), but it may be useful to beginners.

If anyone is interested, let me know, and I’ll send the current draft by PM.

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Be right back, getting a court order to prevent you from calling this “the basics” in any sense. :)

(I do not have time to look this week but it’s a great project.)

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I have zero practical use for this at all, and yet, I am interersted!

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I’m currently tinkering in Dialog, but I can never resist a big chunk of Inform 7 arcana. Hopefully it doesn’t get me all interested in I7 again, I already have sooo many things which I’m extremely busy with not finishing lol

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I was going to say “This one actually is pretty basic!” but then I looked over the table of contents…

table-of-contents
table-of-contents743×753 23.6 KB

Chapter 5 (the last) is Getting the parser to do what you want.

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I’m carefully curious.

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As a fan of writing all sorts of documentation (I know, I have a problem :joy:), this looks sick. What did you use, some flavor of TeX?

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Looking forward to it, Otis.

Sharing the turn sequence and action-processing rules details was stalled for a couple of years 'cause I thought it should include an account of parsing. So I rolled up my sleeves and… published it without one. But I still hoped that someday such a thing might exist!

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Markdown and pandoc.

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I’d like a copy, please.

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Is this like a manual to the manual? :slight_smile: I’d like a copy.

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I’d like a copy, thanks. Seems like most of my bug challenges these days involve pretty high-falutin interplays of the tricky parser levels, and a manual like this might make me better at troubleshooting them myself.

-Wade

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Not sure if I’ll find the time to read it anytime soon, but I am interested.

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If possible, I’d love to get a copy too. Thanks in advance.

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It will be an interesting reading.
If you can, please send me a copy.

Thank you in advance.

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Great idea. I am definitely interested. I’m always banging my head with Inform.

PS. Isn’t basic interpreted? :wink:

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I would definitely also like a copy!

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Thanks. Maybe this will help with my understanding. Please include a copy for me.

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I would absolutely like a copy.