Story build date/time and inform build?

Authoring Inform 7
1

I’m trying to rewrite the banner text to give a more detailed build description during the development phase. Specifically I’m trying to replace

“Release 1 / Serial number 150322 / Inform 7 build 6L38 (I6/v6.33 lib 6/12N) SD”
with something more like
“Test Build 2015-03-22 13:20 / Inform 7 build 6L38 (I6/v6.33 lib 6/12N) SD”

with a fuller timestamp and not calling it a ‘release’. I can replace the banner just fine, but I’m having a hell of a time trying to find the build time, or Inform versions. Could someone help me out?

2

This text is generated by the I6 Banner() routine (which starts by invoking the printing the banner activity).

The code that prints that line is:

        VM_Describe_Release();
        print " / Inform 7 build ", (PrintI6Text) NI_BUILD_COUNT, " ";
        print "(I6/v"; inversion;
        print " lib ", (PrintI6Text) LibRelease, ") ";
        #Ifdef STRICT_MODE;
        print "S";
        #Endif; ! STRICT_MODE
        #Ifdef DEBUG;
        print "D";
        #Endif; ! DEBUG
	new_line;

You’d have to write similar I6 code, or replace the VM_Describe_Release() routine.

3

You can give some of those I7 wrappers to make it a bit easier.

To say I7 version:
    (- PrintI6Text(NI_BUILD_COUNT); -).
To say I6 library version:
    (- PrintI6Text(LibRelease); -).
To say I6 compiler version:
    (- inversion; -).

The release and serial number are a bit more complicated, but for Glulx you can do it this way.

Include (-
[ GetReleaseNumber i;
    @aloads ROM_GAMERELEASE 0 i;
    return i;
];

[ PrintSerialNumber i;
    for (i=0 : i<6 : i++) print (char) ROM_GAMESERIAL->i;
];
-).

To decide what number is the release version:
    (- GetReleaseNumber() -).

To say serial number:
    (- PrintSerialNumber(); -).
4

It looks like I can get what I want by just overriding VM_Describe_Release (because that’s not ‘evil’ at all!), but it doesn’t look like Inform (either of them :stuck_out_tongue:) has equivalents to the C preprocessor’s DATE and TIME? That makes life a bit harder… still possible, of course, at absolute worst I can write a wrapper around ni.exe, but harder. :neutral_face:

5

That’s correct.

Do you think it’s worth adding? (To Inform 6.) It would be fairly easy. Would more projects use it?

6

…now that I think about it, it would be only medium-easy. :slight_smile: They would be string constants, but we’d have to make sure they did not occupy compiled string space in game files that did not actually use them.

7

I have a feeling I’m pretty weird for wanting every individual build to be easily distinguishable, even when I’m doing dozens a day. Most people only care about the publicly released ones, and if you’re doing those more than once a day without incrementing the release number you’re probably doing something wrong.

8

There is also a checksum that you can use to distinguish individual builds.

9

Sure, but having to checksum the file and look at a list isn’t particularly ‘easy’ :stuck_out_tongue: