Why does this Library not load?

[Atarlost]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/381 ... tility.xml

And why are there no useful error messages for people trying to create libraries?

[digdug]

line 139 has a missing parenthesis at the end of the line.

line 149 has a missing parenthesis at the end of the line.

line 179 has a missing parenthesis at the end of the line. (setq angle (add (item configList repeat) fireAngle) should be (setq angle (add (item configList repeat) fireAngle))

line 274 has a "(block nil)" while it should be "(block nil"


I made a paste with the modifications:
http://paste.neurohack.com/view/Y8nmx/

[george moromisato]

When I tried it, I at least got a useless error:

1. I copied the library to Extensions
2. I added a reference to it from SomeExtension.xml (e.g., <Library unid="0xDA7AE000"/>)
3. On load I got: "Line 286: = expected"

The problem, I believe is that the code in <Globals> has embedded tags. E.g., on line 286 it reads:

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; Use in <OnUpdate with AU_AmmoBoxHandler in <OnFireWeapon>

The <OnUpdate and <OnFireWeapon> comments are using XML tags, which are confusing the parser (because the XML parser doesn't know about TLisp comments).

The easiest solution is to wrap the whole thing in a CDATA block:

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<Globals>
<![CDATA[

....

]]>
</Globals>

A better fix is to have the game automatically assume that <Globals> is a CDATA block.

[Atarlost]

All I was getting was that the extension that referenced it referenced a disabled library. That's not a helpful error message.

[digdug]

The <OnUpdate and <OnFireWeapon> comments are using XML tags, which are confusing the parser (because the XML parser doesn't know about TLisp comments).

oh, wow, didn't notice that at all.

I better make sure not to use <> into any comments in my Globals.

[Atarlost]

The <OnUpdate and <OnFireWeapon> comments are using XML tags, which are confusing the parser (because the XML parser doesn't know about TLisp comments).

oh, wow, didn't notice that at all.

I better make sure not to use <> into any comments in my Globals.

George's <![CDATA[]]> solution lets me at least start getting actual error messages.

[pixelfck]

Unfortunately, the <![CDATA[ ... ]]> solution is not without flaw. When enclosing you tLisp code in a CDATA-block, the parser does not correctly parse &foo; entities

~Pixelfck

[george moromisato]

Unfortunately, the <![CDATA[ ... ]]> solution is not without flaw. When enclosing you tLisp code in a CDATA-block, the parser does not correctly parse &foo; entities

~Pixelfck

Ugh--I forgot about that.

[Atarlost]

Well, I found a better way to rewrite the only thing that was using a entity so that's not crippling in this case.

[digdug]

Also, I suppose that in this case we can use straight UNID numbers to avoid the problem.

[Atarlost]

Perhaps it would help to have a universal Transcendence interpreter comment that's chopped out before the file goes to the xml interpreter.

[TVR]

I honestly will never understand, why would anyone comment like this:

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; this is a comment, and devious potential bug if white-spacing isn't correct

When you can use:

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<!-- Anything between these marks is ignored by the XML parser -->

[Atarlost]

And yet enough people find cr/lf terminated comments easier to use that C++ implemented them where C lacked them.

[sun1404]

; comments only comment out anything that is behind them, and on the same line.

<!-- --> comments will comment out everything between the first set of symbols, and the second. This has a few minor disadvantage: Every time you type it down, the code editor will, if it have highlighting features, highlight the WHOLE file starting from the <!-- to the end. Another disadvantage is that if you forget to type in the --> at the end of your comment, it can take a chunk of your code as comments as well.

To put it shortly, the ; comment is more specific and easier to control, and the <!-- --> is for longer comments spanning multiple lines, but is harder to control.

[Atarlost]

The ; comment is also far handier for commenting out single lines of code.