Sexy and Utilitarian Code Configuration
Created by Jimmy Cushnie
Do your configuration files look like this?
<weapons>
<weapon>
<name>sword</name>
<damage>10</damage>
<attackSpeed>1</attackSpeed>
</weapon>
<weapon>
<name>dagger</name>
<damage>6</damage>
<attackSpeed>1.3</attackSpeed>
</weapon>
<weapon>
<name>axe</name>
<damage>20</damage>
<attackSpeed>0.4</attackSpeed>
</weapon>
</weapons>
Do your configuration files, god forbid, look like this? cough cougheasy save
{"weapons":{"__type":"System.Collections.Generic.List`1[[Weapon, Assembly-CSharp, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null]],mscorlib","value":[{"name":"sword","damage":10,"attackSpeed":1},{"name":"dagger","damage":6,"attackSpeed":1.3},{"name":"axe","damage":20,"attackSpeed":0.4}]}}
With SUCC, your configuration files can look like this:
weapons:
-
name: sword
damage: 10
attackSpeed: 1
-
name: dagger
damage: 6
attackSpeed: 1.3
-
name: axe
damage: 20
attackSpeed: 0.4
Look at that. That's a beautiful configuration file. There's zero wasted space on formatting. Everything is laid out clearly so that it's easy to find what you're looking for. The file is fast for a human to read and fast for a human to edit. If you were working on this game and needed to add a new weapon type, what would you rather the configuration file look like?
Furthermore, SUCC gives you a lot of freedom when writing or editing config files. You can play around with the colon position and the indentation level, you can add whitespace, you can add comments. The following file will, to SUCC, load exactly the same as the preceding one:
weapons:
-
# the sword is your starting weapon, very general purpose.
name : sword
damage : 10
attackSpeed : 1
-
# daggers are useful against enemies with slow attack rates.
name : dagger
damage : 6
attackSpeed : 1.3
-
# you use an axe when you need to get rid of a low-health
# enemy as quickly as possible.
name : axe
damage : 20 # this is overpowered. TODO balance better
attackSpeed : 0.4
Not only are SUCC files easy to work with in a text editor, they're easy to work with in your code too. Here is all the code required to recreate that configuration file:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using SUCC;
public class Weapon
{
public string name;
public float damage;
public float attackSpeed;
}
static class Program
{
static void Main()
{
List<Weapon> weapons = new List<Weapon>()
{
new Weapon()
{
name = "sword",
damage = 10,
attackSpeed = 1
},
new Weapon()
{
name = "dagger",
damage = 6,
attackSpeed = 1.3f
},
new Weapon()
{
name = "axe",
damage = 20,
attackSpeed = 0.4f
},
};
var file = new DataFile("weaponsFile");
file.Set("weapons", weapons);
}
}The important part of that is
var file = new DataFile("weaponsFile");
file.Set("weapons", weapons);You keep a reference to that DataFile variable, and later when you need to read it, it's as simple as this:
var weaponsList = file.Get<List<Weapon>>("weapons");But it can be even easier. You just do
var weaponsList = file.Get("weapons", defaultValue: weapons);SUCC will check if a value called "weapons" exists in the file. If so, it will read the file and give you that data. If not, it will save defaultValue to the file and return it to you.
Much more information about SUCC can be found on the wiki. If you're new to SUCC, you probably want to see the Installing and Getting Started pages.
InterSUCC is an extension for SUCC that lets you create SUCC DataFiles which implement an interface type. Getting and setting the properties of those interfaces gets and sets the values in the DataFiles.
Check out SUCC4J by FalsePattern, a full port of SUCC to java!
There are also ongoing projects to port SUCC to Rust and node.js.
Also check out cSUCC, a tool for reading and writing values to SUCC files in C.
Sublime SUCC by pipe01 provides syntax highlighting for SUCC files in Sublime Text 3.
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