Grammar Tokens

There are many kinds of tokens we can use in our grammar definitions. This page devotes some attention to each one.

Token List

attribute

token	applies to	common error message
attribute	any visible object that is attribute.	“You can’t wear that.”

verb "wear"
* clothing                DoWear

parent

token	applies to	common error message
parent	an xobject that is the parent of the object	“You don’t see [object] there.”

verb "get"
    * object "from"/"off"/"on"/"in" parent                   DoGet

held

token	applies to	common error message
held	any object possessed by the player object	“You’re not holding that.”

verb "put"
    * held "on" platform                   DoPutOn

notheld

token	applies to	common error message (if item is already held)
notheld	an object explicitly not held	“You don’t see that.”

! This example does not represent the actual DoGet definition
verb "get"
    * notheld                   DoGet

anything

token	applies to	common error message (if item isn’t known)
anything	any object, held or not, visible or not	“You haven’t encountered anything like that.”

verb "ask"
    * living "about" anything          DoAsk

multi, multiheld, multinotheld

token	applies to	common error message
multi, multiheld, multinotheld	multiple objects (several or all)	none, really

verb "get"
    * multi          DoGet

number

token	applies to	common error message
number	a positive integer number	“That doesn’t make any sense.”

verb "set"
    * object "to" number          DoSet

word

token	applies to	common error message
word	any dictionary word	“You don’t need to use the word [word not in dictionary].”

verb "choose"
    * word          DoChooseColor

string

token	applies to	common error message
string	a quoted string	“You don’t need to use the word [word not in dictionary].”

verb "scrawl"
    * string "in" object          DoScrawl

Note: what the player enters in the quotes (>SCRAWL “HUGO RULEZ” IN SAND) is sent to parse$

(RoutineName)

token	applies to
RoutineName	a routine name, in parenthesis

verb "talk"
    * "to" (SpeakEnglish)          DoTalk
...
routine SpeakEnglish(var)
{
     if var is not living or var.language = "english"
           return true
     else
           print capital Art(var); " doesn't speak English!"
     return false
}

This one is a bit more complicated than your average grammar token.

On the player’s side of things, the parser will accept any known object, like the anything token. When the routine is executed, the parser hasn’t yet determined object and xobject. You must provide a variable (like “var” there) that will be set to the object it is fed. If you have the routine return true, it’ll continue to process the command normally and run the regular verb routine. If you have it return false, be sure to print an error message or else nothing at all will be printed (of course, main will not be called).

This is one of the least-used Hugo features. Currently, no shared-source games use it, so how you want to use it is up to you.

(objectname)

token	applies to
(objectname)	a single object name, in parenthesis

verb "watch"
    * (television)          DoWatchTV

As the description implies, you can not use this feature towards object classes, just single objects. It is useful when one object breaks the verb grammar’s defaults, but you do not want to rewrite the grammar or verb routines. For instance, you have a window object that you want players to be able to look into but don’t want to make the window a container.