Manual:Zone Manual/The Objects Section/Compiling and Debugging your first object

Compiling and Debugging your first object

As we have previously mentioned in (Link to rmdebug) and (Link to npcdebug) it is always a good idea to build one or two things and then compile to make finding errors easy. In this case we have one object to compile and rather than having all the rooms and NPCS get in my way while compiling it I have removed them and only have the '%objects' section. The following is what the zone looks like when it has only one object in it.

	#include <composed.h>
	%zone dragonst
	lifespan 20
	reset RESET_ANYHOW
	creator {"whistler"}

	notes
	"This is the dragon station I shortened it to dragonst for ease in
	loading.  If you have  any questions email me at whistler@valhalla.com"

	help
	"Not sure what could help you now.  You are stuck on one of the
	weirdest space stations you have ever seen and you smell burning
	sulfur."

	%objects

	dragon_head

	title "a gold dragon head"

	descr "A large golden dragon head is laying here looking sad."

	names {"large golden dragon head","large gold dragon head,
	       "golden dragon head","large dragon head","gold dragon head",
	       "dragon head","large head", "sad head","head"}

		   extra {}
	"The head is large and beautiful, at least as beautiful as a dead
	dragon head can be.  There is an extreme look of sorrow on the dragons
	face and it seems to be for much more than its own death."

	extra {"gold dragon head face","dragon head face","head face","face"}
	"Looking into the dragons face your eyes are drawn to the eyes of the
	dead dragon.  Could there be something there?"

	extra {"eyes","eye"}
	"A world of blue skies and no storms is visible through the eyes and it
	seems to be moving as if you were watching the world from space."

	manipulate MANIPULATE_TAKE,MANIPULATE_HOLD

	height 33
		 weight 50

	extra {"$get_s"}
	"You suddenly feel very sad for a world that you don't even know."

	extra {"$get_o"}
	"A strange look of sadness crosses $1ns face."

	extra {"$drop_s"}
	"You feel much happier but you remember a feeling of great sorrow."

	extra {"drop_o"}
	"$1n seems to cheer up a bit."

	end

	%end

I removed the '%rooms' and '%mobiles' sections added a '%objects' section and stuck the dragon head in and now its ready to be compiled and put into the VME server for you to be able to look at it in the game. If you downloaded our example zones for this document you can compile this zone along with us and fix the errors as we do for practice. The filename is debug_obj.zon. Just so you know the errors in this zone are intentional so please don't write me an email telling me that there are errors in it.

The command to compile the zone is VMC debug_obj.zon. Here is what we get when we first try and compile the zone.

	VMC v2.0 Copyright (C) 2001 by Valhalla [May  9 2001]
	Compiling 'debug_obj.zon'
	<debug_obj.zon> @ 65: EOF in string
	debug_obj.zon: 5: parse error
	   Token: '{'
	debug_obj.zon: 25: parse error
	   Token: 'golden'
	Grave errors in file 'debug_obj.zon'.

This error file doesn't look any harder than the last one we dealt with when compiling our first room or NPC. We can not stress enough always fix the smallest numbered error first. In this case the lowest numbered error shows up in line five of the zone. The error says something is wrong with the '{' but looking at the line it is obvious the compiler got confused because I forgot 's' at the end of 'creators'. If we fix line five and recompile this is what we get:

	 VMC v2.0 Copyright (C) 2001 by Valhalla [May  9 2001]
	Compiling 'debug_obj.zon'
	<debug_obj.zon> @ 65: EOF in string
	debug_obj.zon: 25: parse error
	   Token: 'golden'
	Grave errors in file 'debug_obj.zon'.

Now we have come to another one of those weird errors. If you look at line 25 you will find that the line looks like it is correct. As we have said before when you find an error like this it most likely means that you are missing a quote or a '{}'. The only way to find the problem is start at the quote or '{}' before the word in the error and go backwards through the file till you find a missing one. Lucky for us the missing one is in the very next string. If you add a double quote just before the ending comma on line 24 and recompile you will get the following:

	VMC v2.0 Copyright (C) 2001 by Valhalla [May  9 2001]
	Compiling 'debug_obj.zon'
	debug_obj.zon: 42: parse error
	   Token: ','
	Compilation aborted.

This error is a little tricky. It seems to be pointing at the ',' as the problem. If you look at the line though and remember what you need for a manipulate field you will notice that the surrounding '{}' are missing. The reason the compiler is pointing at the comma is because it doesn't understand what to do with the comma with out the '{}' grouping symbols. Fixing these and recompiling results in the following message from the compiler.

	VMC v2.0 Copyright (C) 2001 by Valhalla [May  9 2001]
	Compiling 'debug_obj.zon'
	VMC Done.

Notice there are no errors and it says 'VMC done', this means that you have now successfully compiled the zone. This is the last debugging walk through in the manual. If you still have a lot of trouble figuring out errors don't stress compiling is an art the more you do it the easier it will get. We suggest you take the zones we have provided in our release and create errors so you can get used to the messages you will see when you are making your own zones. Never be afraid to ask for help from someone else sometimes a bug is so simple you will over look it and sometimes it just takes a second person a single glance to find it. Another trick to finding errors if you have been looking for more than 5 minutes take a break and come back in 10 minutes sometimes that short relaxing time will help you find the problem.

You have now compiled your first object. The steps are the same to get it into the game as it was for the rooms and NPCs. We will not go over them again except to say copy your files that the compiler made over into the zone directory of your mud and reboot. From there log on and you should be able to wstat and load your object by using its full symbolic name. It would be a good idea to try and get this zone into your server and lay with the object a bit so when you get to (Link to objcomplex) you will be ready for anything.