I7 (6M62) Parser Behaviour

Authoring Inform 7
1

In my current game, the parser responds to “examine things” by printing the description of the only thing in scope. It also responds to “examine men” by printing the description of the only man in scope. It seems that the names of kinds are being recognised and a corresponding list of objects is being generated and acted on.

  1. Is this indeed what is happening?
  2. Is there a way of suppressing this behaviour?
2

This is indeed a thing that is happening. And I do not know of a means of suppressing it, other than overriding the plural names of problematic kinds.

3

Does anyone know if this is intended behaviour or a bug?

4

I guess this is intended. But it doesn’t seem very consistent with the documentation. Recipe Book Example 11, First Name Basis:

5

Here is a snippet to demonstrate what I mean.

The player is Protagonist. He is a man with the description "The Protagonist."
Sidekick is an undescribed man with the description "The Sidekick." Every turn when Sidekick is not in the location, now Sidekick is in the location.
There is a  room called Start. "Starting Room".
Protagonist is here. Sidekick is here.

The parser responds to “x men” with “The Sidekick.”
This is unexpected since I thought kinds were not meant to be recognised by default.

6

It seems that a thing is by default only understood by the name of its kind if a) the kind is the most specific one that the thing belongs to, and b) the plural is used. I think I’m changing my mind; this seems like a bug, and I’m going to report it.


The Lodge is a room.
A mason is a kind of man. Len is a mason in the Lodge. Sam is a man in the Lodge.

Test me with "x mason / x masons / x man / x men".
7

Thanks.