for a while in my text based game, monsters have been loaded via random variables applied to lists and that are therefore generated.

However, for a while i have wondered how i could have all the monster attributes in an easily modifiable text file containing all the data.

i know how it will work, what it do is for example, i will call foo.txt

Rabbit

30#hp

5#attack

bites #success verb

bite #fail verb

rat

40

10

nibbles

nibble

the trouble is that i don't know what function to use as some of the information from help() is vague about arguments.

what i am looking for is a function that looks at one of these random variables and can move the reader 'head' to the exact file line specified by the random variable

e.g.

say i wanted to load rabbit:

function_name(1) #since rabbit is the first line of foo.txt

is there a function like this?

if not, how do i replicate a function like this to put inside my game? not in terms of parameters etc. just what combination of function calls and loops etc do i need?

thanks a million

edit: it is python

you would need to find or create a file reader/manager. and then use it to sort out how to read the text file. I found a simple one going through a tutorial on youtube. its the platformer mad easy of c#. its done by the guy from the site codingmadeeasy.com. just check out the filemanager portion of his platformer tutorial.

it reads in a file and goes through it till it finds the correct identifier, in your case monster name. Then you can have multiple monsters on one file and load the correct one based on the programs need. it is simple to set up and easy to use. there are others already made for you out there that use other file formats, such as xml. but they seem a little complicated for what you seem to be looking for.

You can store these things in json file ("example.json"):

{
	"monsters": [
		{
			"name": "Rabbit",
			"hp": 30,
			"attack": 5
		},
		{
			"name": "Rat",
			"hp": 40,
			"attack": 10
		}
	]
}

And load using python JSON library (included in Python 2.6):

import json

config_file = open('example.json')
data = json.load(config_file)
config_file.close()

for monster in data["monsters"]:
    print monster

thanks for the info, i will try it