[DGD]A complicated mapping.

[E. Harte]

On Tue, 24 Aug 1999, Seer Asmodean wrote:

[...]
> mapping table_s ;
> 
> table_s = ([ "Title1": ([ "Subtitle1": ({ 1,
>                                           "Short bit of text.\n",
>                                           "A much longer bit of text.\n" }),
>                           "Subtitle2": ({ 2,
>                                           "Short bit of text.\n",
>                                           "A much longer bit of text.\n" })
>                           ]),
>              "Title2": ([ "Subtitle1": ({ 1,
>                                           "Short bit of text.\n",
>                                           "A much longer bit of text.\n" })
>                           ])
>              ]);
> 
> (That IS a mapping mapped to another mapping mapped to an array.)
[...]
> I'm having several problems with this:
> 1) Where do I declare it, and where do I assign up the values? It's
>    intended to be a constant.

If you want to have one unique mapping like this in the whole 'mud',
you'll want to put it in an object of its own, and query the data from
that one object.  If you put it in a .h file and and #include that .h file
in various objects, you'll be creating different instances of the same
data, there will be no sharing.

> I've tried putting it in a separate .h file as above (but on one long
> line for  the compiler) and including it into player.c. This generates a
> 'Syntax Error' when I run the mud.

Probably because you made a typo in the data, I've corrected two or three
in the quoted text above, one '([' was deleted and a '.' replaced with a
',', compare and see. :)

> I've tried turning it into a #define, the mud will run but any line of code 
> added to the lib to access it will cause the same unhelpful error message.

Same reason, probably. :)

> 2) Assuming I'm not making an impossible request and it can be made to work, 
>    how do I access the various elements?
>    My current asumption would be something like
>    table_s["Title1"]["Subtitle2"](0) to return 2, or
>    table_s["Title1"]["Subtitle2"](1) for "Short bit of text.\n".

You'll want to use table_s["Title1"]["Subtitle2"][0] and [1],
respectively.

> 3) Is it possible to lay such code out like above, i.e split across several 
> lines in a nice coder-readable table? When coding it I put the whole thing on 
> one line,  not knowing how to tell the compiler that it was all one line.

Sure, if you're using a #define then you can use backslashes to continue
on the next line, like this:

 table_s = ([ "Title1": ([ "Subtitle1": ({ 1, \
                                           "Short bit of text.\n", \
                                           "A much longer bit of text.\n" }), \
                           "Subtitle2": ({ 2, \
                                           "Short bit of text.\n", \
                                           "A much longer bit of text.\n" }) \
                           ]), \
              "Title2": ([ "Subtitle1": ({ 1, \
                                           "Short bit of text.\n", \
                                           "A much longer bit of text.\n" }) \
                           ]) \
              ]); \

Hope that helps. :)

Erwin.


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