Chapter 7. Description files

Table of Contents
tables
locations
subtables
actions
misc

They are simple (?) text files and typically sit in /etc/gaby/ or ~/.gaby/. They can be created using the builder but since this utility is not perfect (yet) and that description files may be somewhat complex it is interesting to be able to write one by hand.

Description files are divided in sections which begin with Begin <section_name> and end with End. Common sections are tables, locations, subtables, actions and misc.

They may contain comments which are lines starting with # anywhere [1] between or in sections.

We'll know look closely at each section with a stupid example; let's say we're a little bookseller (even if being an e-bookseller would certainly help to bring money) and we want to know what we have in our store [2].

tables

Begin tables
        Books
                Title:string
                Category:string
                Price:real
                Amount:integer
                Remarks:strings
End

This defines a table with 5 fields :

The list of available types is available in Table 7-1.

Table 7-1. Field types

Stringcomment   
Stringscomment   
Integercomment   
Realcomment   
Datecomment   
Booleancomment   
Multimediacomment   

Important: Indentations are made using tabulations, not spaces !

Notes

[1]

this is not really true, read on ...

[2]

We could also manage customers, print orders, ... but this is an example