>> it will impact the mud. would it be considered efficient to merge all the helpfile entries into one big helpfile, rather than having them all over the place? >>> This wasn't talking about putting all of the helpfiles into help.are, this was talking about putting ALL of the helpfiles into one helpfile itself, from what I understood the point to be. So, the mud itself would have to search through 1 large helpfile, not 1 area, for the correct help on xxx subject.
Again, perhaps, I understood the point wrong, but as I said in my first mail, merging ALL of the helpfiles into help.are IS a good idea, it's quite that. Merging all of the helpfiles into ONE helpfile is a bad thing, because there's no distinguishing between the two. If all he was talking about was merging everything into help.are, then I was wrong, but as I understood his mail, it wasn't. And yeah, something could easily spike memory for a mud. For example, if, taken for instance, I was right, and the idea was to just throw everything into one entry. That single entry would have to be searched through whenever a user typed help "the" for instance. Every occurrence of the word "the" would have to be reported to the user, which, again, could seriously spike server resources, or cause the mud to dump a core and run like mad, depending on how good your programming skills are. ------------------------------------------- TJW: Head tech, Dreamless Realms Mud Personal: http://twhiting.kyndig.com Mud: http://drealms.kyndig.com Snippets http://drealms.kyndig.com/snippets Telnet telnet://drealms.kyndig.com:9275 The OLC2 Pages http://olc.kyndig.com ------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris "Winston" Litchfield Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 10:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Question about helpfiles Tom, Exactly HOW does using a help file spike its memory? I do have all the helps in a help.are, provide a nice keyword system (including ability to get a help by number), and do not spike memory. Memory is never "spiked" when you search something that is already in memory. I personally think that having all the helps in one file makes managing them a lot easier. It is very important to keep the helps up-to-date and consistent in how they are presented. If you dont do that, the mud/game looks sloppy and incomplete. If you are worried about memory, you have something else to consider :) Chris
