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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: [inform] list of library messages
Message-ID: <G6AyE4.9r4@world.std.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 23:54:04 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Lines: 36
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:81728

In the Designer's Manual, Appendix A9, "Library Message Numbers",
offers a listing of the library messages.

Unfortunately, the content of that listing is little different from
what you find on perusing the relevant sections of "English.h" directly.
It is sometimes impossible to determine from the text of a message what
conditions lead to that message; indeed, some messages offer
absolutely no clue: "You lack the dexterity." is PutOn:4, but
what condition leads to that when putting something on something
else? Moreover, what OTHER verb triggers that message? [answer below]

To help fill this gap, I've produced a listing of the function
of the messages, and the context in which they are produced.
Many of these are so obvious that the text of the listing is
quite brief--and indeed you could figure them out from just
the original English text.  But some of them are not so obvious.

Hopefully, this will be of use whether you're making a wholesale
change to the library messages (e.g. to make them third-person)
or if you're just looking to change a single message (so you can
check whether the message is produced under other conditions
as well).

The list is not complete--I only hunted through the source code
for non-obvious messages, so it is possible there are alternative
contexts where some "normal" messages are called.  It also changes
styles at least three times, because the work was mind-numbing.
Hopefully I'll clean that up at some point.

   http://world.std.com/~buzzard/games/if/lm.txt

I welcome corrections and clarifications.

SeanB
"PUT X ON Y" when both X and Y are in the player, and also "DROP ME"
(or perhaps that's meant to cover "THROW ME"? "PUT ME DOWN"?)
