[Freeciv] Re: Load Command

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2001 at 09:06:46AM +0100, Martin Thompson wrote:
> I know you'll have seen this question before, but since I've read the
> FAQ and used the help system in version 1.11.4, and still can't load a
> saved game, I thought I'd ask the question here.

Good idea - the documentation always needs improvement.
 
> The documentation seems inadequate or wrong, or I am missing something
> obvious, but anyway: the help in my version says that to load a saved
> game, I should start the server with a --file <filename> parameter
> tagged on to it. It doesn't give me the name or the default location of
> the executable (thanks)

That's not determined by Freeciv, it's determined at compile time, so
you'd have to look in the README that comes with your binary distrution,
assuming you have one.  Just 'civserver' is expected to work if it is
installed properly.

> or the saved games (thanks again).

The current directory.  Yes, that is an omission.

> /usr/bin/civserver-wrapper --file Egyptians.gz
> 
> Needless to say, it doesn't work.

Needless?  What is the error message?  Is Egyptians.gz a saved game,
scenario file, or world map?

> I tried it without the -wrapper bit
> too.

'civserver-wrapper' is not distributed with Freeciv.
But I just found it on a RedHat system:

% rpm -qf /usr/bin/civserver-wrapper
freeciv-1.11.4-2

So put the blame on the RedHat package author.

> I tried it with some of its auto-saved .sav.gz files too. Nothing.

civserver-wrapper turns out to be rather primitive;
it fails to pass its arguments.

Another wrapper script ('ser') *is* distributed with Freeciv.
I use one of my own design 'cs' that automatically creates a private
subdirectory to store savefiles and everything else.  It is also used
on civserver.freeciv.org.  Why don't we distribute this with the source
tree?

> Sometimes the server loads, but when I subsequently join the game and
> 'start' it knows nothing of the saved game and starts a new one.

As far as I know, that's simply impossible.

> The FAQ
> says to use a -f parameter, but that doesn't work either (the server
> doesn't even load).

See above for the cause.
 
> Perhaps I should be reporting the lack of a Load command to the bugs
> list?

No doubt it's already listed.  The /load command isn't implemented
because it's a boring job to go through the code looking for every
occurrence of memory allocation, avoid memory leaks in the dynamic case,
and make it reinitialize as required.

-- 
Reinier Post