ezi72ulx

By Allison Parrish

This is a script that reads in an Inform 7 source file from standard input and spits out a .ulx file on standard output. In order to function properly, it requires you to have the Inform 7 IDE for macOS installed in the default location. You may be able to use the code in the library to easily adapt the functionality for other platforms and purposes.

Usage:

    python -m ezi72ulx.build <source.ni >output.ulx

You can load the resulting .ulx up in any Glulx interpreter of your choice, including Quixe.

If there's a compilation error, the program exits with a non-zero return code and displays the error to stderr.

Installation

With pip right from GitHub:

pip install https://github.com/aparrish/ezi72ulx/archive/master.zip

As noted above, if you want the build module to work as an executable, you'll need to be running macOS and have the Inform 7 IDE installed in the expected location (/Applications/Inform.app).

The code makes use of one or two of Python 3.7+ features, so you'll need to be running that.

How it works and why

Here's what the program does:

1. Reads in standard input and creates a Inform 7 project in a temporary directory
2. Uses the ni and inform6 executables to compile the source to .ulx
3. Reads in the .ulx and prints it to standard output
4. Deletes the temporary directory

I made this so I could work the Inform 7 compilation process into my existing workflows for programming and building tutorials.

Limitations

This is a quick hack, so it probably doesn't... actually work for anything but the simplest cases. I don't think it will work with extensions, for example.

License

Copyright 2018 Allison Parrish

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.