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From: bbarnett@crash.cts.com (Bruce Barnett)
Subject: Getting going with Inform
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 12:26:32 GMT
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I'm having trouble making Inform for MS-DOS work, and I can't figure out
why.  I have downloaded and have placed in the same directory the Inform
compiler program and the three library files:  Parser, VerbLib, and
Grammar.  Here's the section of the Inform manual I'm trying to implement:


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
D1.  Getting started
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


The first thing to try is to compile the "Hello Cruel World" game, a very
short test file given in Appendix C.  If that compiles and runs properly
(producing a short page of text, then finishing), try the following:


    Constant Story "SHELL";
    Constant Headline "^An Interactive Skeleton^\
                 Copyright (c) 1994 by (your name here).^";

    #include "Parser";
    #include "VerbLib";

    Object Blank_Room "Blank Room"
      with description "An empty room."
      has  light;

    [ Initialise;
      location=room;
      "^^^^^Welcome to the shell...^^";
    ];
    
    #include "Grammar";
    end;


If this compiles, Inform is almost certainly set up and working properly.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Well, the "hello Cruel World" routine worked properly, but the program above
yields the following error message and refuses to generate an object file:

line 5: Fatal error:  Couldn't open input file "Parser.h"

Thinking that maybe the library files might need the ".H" extension, I
renamed them to add the extension, then tried to compile again.  I now got
these error messages:

line 8: Error: Bad property name "description"
>        Object Square_Room "Square Room"     with description       ...etc
line 14: Warning: Control will begin from the routine "initialize"
Line 15: Error: Unknown variable "location"
         location=room
Compiled with 2 errors and 1 warning (no output)

If anyone can help I'd truly appreciate it.  I'd like to get going!

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
                         
