What was ShowDictSub() supposed to do

Authoring Inform 6
1

While working on Z-machine dictionary alignment trouble, I looked more closely at the chunk of code I cribbed for checking out the length of dictionary entries. The code was from ShowDictSub() and I cannot seem to find where it is supposed to be called. It’s not called from within the Standard Library and I see nothing in the Inform 6 compiler to call it either going as far back as 2010, nothing in the DM4, and nothing anywhere else that doesn’t point directly at the Standard Library.

What was this function originally intended for and why can’t I find anything that calls it now?

2

Isn’t it the action routine for a debugging verb for StdLib 6.12? In grammar.h, there is

! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!  Debugging grammar
! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#Ifdef DEBUG;

...

Verb meta 'showdict' 'dict'
    *                                           -> ShowDict
    * topic                                     -> ShowDict;
1 Like
3

Oof! You’re right. Brain fart!