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15. Reading matter and consultation
Even at present... we still know very little about how access to printed materials affects human behaviour....Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe
look up figure 18 in the engineering textbookis a difficult line for Inform to understand, because almost anything could appear in the first part: even its format depends on what the second part is. This kind of request, and more generally
look up <any words here> in <the object>cause the Consult object action. Note that second is just zero: formally, there is no second noun attached to a Consult action. The object has to parse the <any words here> part itself, in a before rule for Consult. The following variables are set up to make this possible:
read about <any words here> in <the object>
consult <the object> about <any words here>
consult_from holds the number of the first word in the <any...> clause;
consult_words holds the number of words in the <any...> clause (at least 1).
The words given are parsed using library routines like NextWord(), TryNumber(word-number) and so on: see Section 24 for full details. As usual, the before routine should return true if it has managed to deal with the action; returning false will make the library print "You discover nothing of interest in...''.
Little hints are placed here and there in the 'Ruins', written in the glyphs of an ancient dialect of Mayan. Our explorer has, of course, come equipped with the latest and finest scholarship on the subject:
Object dictionary "Waldeck's Mayan dictionary"
with name "dictionary" "local" "guide" "book" "mayan"
"waldeck" "waldeck^s",
description "Compiled from the unreliable lithographs of the
legendary raconteur and explorer ~Count~ Jean Frederic
Maximilien Waldeck (1766??-1875), this guide contains
what little is known of the glyphs used in the local
ancient dialect.",
before
[ w1 w2 glyph other; Consult:
if (consult_words>2) jump GlyphHelp;
wn=consult_from;
w1 = NextWord(); ! First word of subject
w2 = NextWord(); ! Second word (if any) of subject
if (consult_words==1 && w1=='glyph' or 'glyphs')
jump GlyphHelp;
! We want to recognise both "glyph q1" and "q1 glyph":
glyph=w1; other=w2;
if (w1=='glyph') { glyph=w2; other=w1; }
! So now glyph holds the name, and other the other word
if (consult_words==2 && other~='glyph') jump GlyphHelp;
switch(glyph)
{ 'q1': "(This is one glyph you have memorised!)^^
Q1: ~sacred site~.";
'circle': "Circle: ~the Sun; also life, lifetime~.";
...
default: "That glyph is so far unrecorded.";
}
! All three of the ways the text can go wrong lead to
! this message being produced:
.GlyphHelp; "Try ~look up <name of glyph> in book~.";
],
has proper;
Note that this understands any of the forms "q1'', "glyph q1'' or
"q1 glyph'' but is careful to reject, for instance, "glyph q1 glyph''.
(These aren't genuine Mayan glyphs, but some of the real ones have similar
names, dating from when their syllabic equivalents weren't known: G8,
the Lord of the Night, for instance.)
(link to the answer)
Attribute legible;
...
Object textbook "textbook"
with name "engineering" "textbook" "text" "book",
description "What beautiful covers and spine!",
before
[; Consult, Read:
"The pages are full of senseless equations.";
],
has legible;
...
[ ReadSub; <<Examine noun>>; ];
Extend "read" first * legible -> Read;
If you really need more elaborate topic-parsing (for, e.g., "look up <something> in the catalogue'', where any object name might appear) then extending the grammar for look may be less trouble. For a good implementation see 'Encyclopaedia Frobozzica', by Gareth Rees.