Hi Jim, Yeah, I know. The easiest way to save and read data is to serialize it. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, if you use a binary file like that the end user can't edit it, but its the easiest way to save and retrieve data from a programming perspective. Unfortunately, if you use a text file you lose all the advantages of creating a class and being able to serialize its data making the work 10 times harder.
Although, this is where a language like Java does come in handy. In Java there is an API called soap. I don't have any clue where they got the name from, but it was designed to handle this particular issue in a very sstraight forward manner. Basically, instead of serializing data to a binary file it saves your classes to an xml file. Since xml is a markup language your save game files, menus, whatever you saved will be very nice to edit and are fairly straight forward. Here is an example. <xml> <eve> <name>Eve Torres</name> <age>32</age> <from>Denver Colorado</from> <gender>female</gender> <weight>131</wait> </eve> </xml> As you can see the xml tags are similar to html. You start out with the object name, and then each tag inside the object tags are the variables with their saved data. Anyone should be able to read that and edit it fairly easily. There might be a way to do this in C++, but I suspect I'd have to hunt down a third-party API where languages like .Java have this built in by default. HTH On 4/20/11, Jim Kitchen <j...@kitchensinc.net> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > Yep, but people do like to customize the games. So in my games like golf > and monopoly I wrote separate programs for people to use to create the text > slash data files so that they were not just editing a simple text file. And > then if you make those files binary rather than simple text files they are > not easily editable by the end user. Of course you also loose the ease of > editing and reading that data for the game's use. It is just another part > of producing and distributing games where you need to make a decision on > what is the best compromise that you and the end user can live with. > > BFN > > Jim > > The high cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. > > j...@kitchensinc.net > http://www.kitchensinc.net > (440) 286-6920 > Chardon Ohio USA > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
