Inform programming--"Consult" help


11 Jun 1995 03:06:34 GMT

Can anyone tell me how to code up a Consult routine (or where to
find guidance in the manual or other documents) so that I can do
the following:

Object encyclopedia "encyclopedia" In_The_Encyclopedia_Place

with before [; Consult: if (whatever_player_typed ==
'thesubject')
"Well, whaddya know? It works!";
];

I've tried everything I can think of. I'm new to this programming
business so maybe I've got this all wrong, but it seems to me the
ConTopic and ConTopicI routines only parse the player's input and
give it a "pass" so that an error message is not generated. They
don't return what the player typed, nor can I find a global
variable in which this is stored.
If I in fact need to do my own parsing in order to use the
Consult action at all, could you tell me how to do it? I've spent
two days on this problem and am ready to pull what little hair I
have left out!

Thanks in advance,

Jim Newland (76461.2144@compuserve.com)