Re: [Wesnoth-dev] A WML idea: import

[David White]

Yann Dirson wrote:

> On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 03:22:20PM -0500, David White wrote:
>  
>
> > This idea isn't nearly as sophisticated as silene's module system 
> > proposal some time ago, but on the other hand I think it is much easier 
> > to implement. The main thing it does provide is assurance against being 
> > unable to load the game's core WML document because a user campaign has 
> > an error.
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> >    
>
> What striked me as most useful in silene's proposal was that another
> safeguard: if a user campaign redefines a standard unit, that modified
> unit would only be seen by the relevant campaign.  I do not think your
> "import" idea would protect us from such a case, which is probably
> harder to pinpoint than a "simple" error.
>
> That said, I still have a strong opinion that such a way of doing
> things (eg. overriding a standard unit) is very bad practice, and that
> eg. distinct units starting as copies of standard ones should be used
> instead.  Maybe we could have a safeguard against such a practice,
> although I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement one.
>  
Well, I think the simple, easy, and correct solution is simply to forbid 
campaigns from re-definining units. Only the first unit with a certain 
ID will be used; others will be rejected.

If user campaigns want to 'redefine' a unit, they can create an 
identical one, with a slightly different ID.

However your point does raise another problem: by 'default', the 
[+units] syntax used to add more units wouldn't work in an imported 
document. We'd probably have to make importing have the capacity to do this.

David