Friday, August 8, 2008

Notes on the MMParser

First off, there have been reports of some path issues. I believe I've corrected it in 1.1.8 . I'm now using the correct syntax to check for a directory and I'm checking that directory names end in the required "\". If you are getting File Not Found when the checker runs, it's probably due to this. If you're running 1.1.8 and still getting incorrect File Not Found errors, drop me a comment. Note this has NOT been fixed in the PHB parser. It's on my list to take care of.

Second, when I moved the close on exit code over to the MM parser, I accidentally included an extra call to the batch file used to automatically compress the archive. This can produce errors after a successful parse (Invalid procedure call, or in the case of my WinRAR batch file, archive corrupted or file in use errors within WinRAR). I've fixed this error but haven't released a corrected executable. I plan on releasing this fix along with some of the fixes I make for the items below.

Third, my personal source data file for the MM parser has been largely unchanged for months. On occasion I go in and apply any errata, fix cut & paste errors, etc. But most of my module builds have been due to changes in the XML structure within the ruleset, not due to the data being incorrect.

However as more people are starting to use the parser, they've encountered some oddities that I manually fixed ages ago. I honestly forgot I made them. I'll take a look at the parser and see if I can't re-adjust it to trap for some of these situations and handle them gracefully.

For now this is a list of what's been reported to give errors and the changes I made to get them to parse successfully. These were all noted by Chesko over on FUM:

Angels' Angelic protection was moved to the resistances line.
Azers' Warding flame should was moved into the power section and tagged (X...ZZX) appropriately.
Atropal Extra text after the action points was removed.

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