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hoot
Newbie


Joined: 30 Apr 2004
Posts: 6
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:46 am   

Database and the Zmud regular Mapper
 
I play a mud that has over 15000 rooms. I have (blush) mapped most of it with the normal zmud mapper. The zmud application is very slow in loading as that there is a lot of spam in my maps (i.e. "a mule(mine) is here ridden by you." and "a lion is here." etc...) A new 'feature' of the game is using xml tags which differentiate between room name, room description, mobiles in room, interactible objects, etc.
What I would like to do, however, is to open the map file with a database program and edit out all the spam. Anyone know if that is possible or should I just restart mapping the mud using the xml tags?

Hoot
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ZealousAnonymous
Wanderer


Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 70

PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2006 7:37 am   
 
Give me an example of what the room looks like then what the edited version should look like?
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2006 7:22 pm   
 
Are they using their own xml tags, or are they using MXP? MXP provides an xml mechanism for the mapper to tag names, descriptions, etc. If the MUD has that available, then you should definitely use it. If not, then you might ask the MUD admins why they choose their own xml mechanism instead of using the MXP standard that many other MUDs and MUD clients use.

But the "spam" in your map shouldn't effect loading time, and 15000 isn't really that much (I have maps with a lot more). You might try using the Compact option in zMapper to make the database file more efficient. Or you can wait until the mapper update for CMUD later this summer where I replace the crappy and buggy ADO/MDAC database with a more efficent SQL-based database.
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ZealousAnonymous
Wanderer


Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 70

PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:29 pm   
 
I have a map with 14,800 rooms + descs + notes and such and it loads fine. I can write a script for you to remove the spam if you tell me what the desc looks like and how you want the ideal desc to look like.
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hoot
Newbie


Joined: 30 Apr 2004
Posts: 6
Location: USA

PostPosted: Mon May 29, 2006 4:35 pm   
 
Mume Mud Output is as follows:

<prompt>*# CW&gt;</prompt>west
<movement dir=west/><room><name>Bear's Way
</name><description>A stone road leads to a huge stone fountain in the east and a wall of green a
bit farther west. Utilitarian in nature, this road also serves an aesthetic
purpose. Using the stones as an artist medium, the builder has crafted the
image of a massive black bear in the road. The flat sculpture is so large that
it would not be visible to those standing directly above it but would appear to
be a dark patch in the stones. But viewed from the outer edges, a larger than
life bear can be seen, looking towards the west with its head turned slightly
upwards.
</description>A young boy is here, bumping into things.
</room><exits>Exits: north, east, west.
</exits>
<prompt>*# CW&gt;</prompt>
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Petrograd
Novice


Joined: 08 Dec 2005
Posts: 35
Location: Sweden

PostPosted: Mon May 29, 2006 4:50 pm   
 
Hmm, how does compacting work? Lossless? Couldn't seem to find its helpfile.

Sitting here with a one minute loading time, 17k rooms, loads of notes, 86,4mb mapfile >.<
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vey2000
Novice


Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 32

PostPosted: Mon May 29, 2006 7:06 pm   
 
Compacting is like a defragmentation of sorts. To make an analogy with a file system: in a file system you defragment files, in a database you defragment records. (I think that database storage actually works quite similarly to file storage.)

Hrm, I think you seriously need to compact your database. My map has around 10k rooms -- although with no notes -- and it uses less than 9 mb. Compacting does speed up loading, since , for one, it has to load a much smaller file.

Although, I think I noticed a while back that the room #1 in the database got its desc changed with that of another room after compacting. But after I recreated the room so it had a newer number -- database record number, that is -- it stopped happening, I think. I haven't mudded in a few months, so my memory is a bit rusty.
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hoot
Newbie


Joined: 30 Apr 2004
Posts: 6
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2006 7:25 am   
 
Compacted, went from 1111k to 157k :P
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Petrograd
Novice


Joined: 08 Dec 2005
Posts: 35
Location: Sweden

PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2006 12:57 pm   
 
Mine said it went from 600-something k to 157k too I think... but the actual file went down to 19,6 mb O.o Lots faster loading :D

Thanks ^__^
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Seb
Wizard


Joined: 14 Aug 2004
Posts: 1269

PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2006 3:27 pm   Re: Database and the Zmud regular Mapper
 
hoot wrote:
I play a mud [MUME] that has over 15000 rooms. I have (blush) mapped most of it with the normal zmud mapper. The zmud application is very slow in loading as that there is a lot of spam in my maps (i.e. "a mule(mine) is here ridden by you." and "a lion is here." etc...) A new 'feature' of the game is using xml tags which differentiate between room name, room description, mobiles in room, interactible objects, etc.
What I would like to do, however, is to open the map file with a database program and edit out all the spam. Anyone know if that is possible or should I just restart mapping the mud using the xml tags?

Hoot

MUME actually has around 27,000 rooms, but a lot of these aren't open to mortals (some are not finished). [Edit]I was curious how many open rooms there were, so I checked: there are 22330.[/Edit]

It sounds like compacting works pretty well, but you can actually edit the zMUD map database with MS Access or even perhaps MS Excel / MS Query. However, you should make a backup copy of the map database file first! Wink

Zugg wrote:
Are they using their own xml tags, or are they using MXP? MXP provides an xml mechanism for the mapper to tag names, descriptions, etc. If the MUD has that available, then you should definitely use it. If not, then you might ask the MUD admins why they choose their own xml mechanism instead of using the MXP standard that many other MUDs and MUD clients use.

They are using their own xml tags because the chief implementer didn't bother to do any research on existing standards before implementing them. I've been pushing for these xml tags to be deprecated in favour of MXP, but this implementer has not been very active lately (and is generally not very communicative to lesser (im)mortals). Had I known he was thinking about adding them I would have sent him a mail I had written some time earlier and left sitting in my Drafts, before he implemented this xml mode, rather than after... Argh!
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