Bay 12 Games Forum

• Backup {dwarf fortress directory}/raw/objects/creature_domestic.txt.   You
  can restore this file if you want to remove this "mod".
• Copy creature_domestic.txt from below and replace the content of creature_domestic.txt with it.
• You need to restart the game for it to take effect!

Didn't actually want to do another gfx set so soon, but in my current game, the goblins invades, and I couldn't resist it...  Think what new gfx tiles I do next is very much decided by what things appear in the current game... LOL

This time round, I'm using a mixture of binary filesize and crc32 checking.  Crc32 provides the file signature.  Filesize is just an extra safety switch in case two versions ends up with the same crc32 by coincidence.

Here's what I gathered so far, from a quick program:

33a : (crc32:0x0d752a37,filesize:5226496)
33b : (crc32:0x54b3ed5d,filesize:5230592)
33c : (crc32:0x9acba447,filesize:5255168)
33d : (crc32:0xcec9022c,filesize:5259264)

The only short-coming here I guess is that checksum computation could be expensive, but given DF binary's small size, and that I'm using an assembly implementation I got off codeproject, I think it is acceptable (the delay is not really noticeable by human), if it is done only once at the entry point and once again at every re-entrance.

Any suggestions/criticisms/loop-holes?

edit:added values for 33a

[ December 10, 2007: Message edited by: sphr ]

BEFORE YOU CARRY ON:
This is meant for present/potential tools/utility developers only  Think that nobody else will be interested.  So save yourself the pain of reading a long post with gibberish-like codes.

==(Limited) Future Proofing of (memory hacking)Utilities==

I am just getting started with re-learning the memory hacking all over again.

One problem I find with trying to create a utility is the rapidly changing version and the need to keep things updated, recompile and upload.

On the user end, they have to deal with multiple versions of the same tool that works for one version of dwarf fortress (I don't know about others, but I keep my previous versions around, in case there are insurmountable bugs in the lastest versions etc etc.)

What I'm thinking of is, instead of hard-coding/static-compiling all the memory offsets into the binary, why not add an optional means of loading a new "Memory Map" from a text file?  If there is any latest updates to the memory map in the latest version, the "config" file could be edited into wiki and people can just copy and paste the config data to make their tools work with latest version if the attributes the tools used are defined.

To make the same config works across different tools, perhaps we can develop a library that accepts well-known attribute names defined by the community.  E.g. Instead of assuming that nick name of a creature is 0x001C from the starting address of a known creature struct data, users of library uses the defined attribute name "first_name" instead.  The actual resolving of the name to actual address offset is handled by the library.  In the ideal case, the library should also provide wrappers to work with these offsets such that the tool developer don't ever have to deal with the address after binding the main dward fortress process.  Or even the process binding part could be part of the library.

====A hopefully motivating example====
This is a mockup of a partial input file that helps define the memory maps for a particular dwarf fortress version

code:

---

<!--
  The following defines a memory map called  "creature_ptr" which "specializes"
  from a primitve type "pointer" and value_type denotes the memory map
  name of pointed data.
-->
<defmap id="creature_ptr" type="type "pointer" value_type="creature"/>
<!--  
    The following defines a memory map called  "creature_vector" which 
    "specializes" from "vector" type.
    A type-specific attribute "value_type" optionally denotes the contained 
    type.  If this type does not have a size which is statically known, the 
    vector cannot use indexed retrieval and falls back to just being a block 
    of bytes
-->
<defmap>
<!--  
    The following defines a memory map called  "creature" which "specializes" 
    from a primitive "complex" type.   Complex maps are the only ones that 
    can have submaps.
-->
<defmap>
  <submap>
  <submap>
  <submap>
  <submap>
  <other>
</defmap>
<!-- 
  this defines a memory map called  "main" which "specializes" from "complex" 
  type.  Specialized data are contained as children. 
-->
<defmap>
  <submap>
  <other>
</defmap>

---

e.g. (c++ on windows platform assumed)

code:

---

  HANDLE handleDF;
  // proceed to find and retrieve handle for dwarf fortress process and detect
  // version and load correct memory map definitions etc)
  /* for the rest of mock code, assume:
    suffix of Sptr to be shared/smart ptr.
    ??MemMap to be a memory map instance
    ??Object is like a io formatter for a memory address and a particular map
    In short, ??MemMap just denotes where the offsets to certain known
    attributes are, ??Object is the one that tries to interpret a memory
    location as the speicified ??.
  */
    // Optional phase to verify that all things we are going to use are
    // defined.  If not, should probably terminate the application with
    // error messages where appropriate.
    // start of testing.
      MemMapBaseConstSptr mmap;
      ComplexMemoryObjectSptr temp;
      // **** verify main process map ****
      // verify required memmap exists
      mmap = MemMapRegistry::GetMap("main");
      ASSERT(mmap)
      // verify required memmap attributes exists
      ASSERT( mmap->GetMapping("main_creature_vector_loc") );

      // **** verify creature struct map ****
      // verify required memmap exists
      mmap = MemMapRegistry::GetMap("creature");
      ASSERT(mmap)
      // verify required memmap attributes exists
      ASSERT( mmap->GetMapping("first_name") );
      ASSERT( mmap->GetMapping("nick_name") );
    // end of testing
  /*
      Note that each tool applciation does not need to verify the whole memory
      structure.  It only have to verify those that it uses.  For example,
      foreman.exe uses labour settings and professions.  It does not need to
      verify things like inventory or health.
  */

  // call to registry to return shared ptr to a memory map called "main"
  MemMapSpr spDFMemMap = MemMapRegistry::GetMap("main") ;
  if( spDFMemMap == NULL )
  {
    // report error.  memory map not found.
    // redundant if testing is done before
  }
  else
  {
    ComplexMemoryObjectSptr  spMainDF =
      ComplexMemoryObject::New(   0     // no offset address
                                , handleDF  // process handle of dwarfort.exe
                                , spDFMemMap
                              );
    ASSERT( spMainDF != NULL ); // assume no prob
    VectorObjectSptr creature_vector = VectorObject::New(
          spMainDF->GetSubObject("main_creature_vector_loc")
        , MemMapRegistry::GetMap("pointer") ) ;
        // need to specify a map with known size to make vector iterable.
    ASSERT( creature_vector  != NULL ); // assume no prob
    // iterate through creature vector
    for( VectorObject::Iterator it = creature_vector->Begin()
        ; it != creature_vector->End()
        ; ++ it )
    {
      ComplexMemoryObjectSptr creature =
             ComplexMemoryObject::New( PtrObject(*it).Dereference()
                                    ,  MemMapRegistry::GetMap("creature")
                                    );
      ASSERT( creature  != NULL ); // assume no prob
      // retrieve first and nick names
      std::string first_name =
        StringObject(creature->GetSubObject("first_name")).GetValue();
      // declare var for nick name instead to allow easier write back
      StringObject nick =
        StringObject(creature->GetSubObject("nick_name"));
      std::string nick_name = nick.GetValue();
      // change nickname and rewrite it back.  Note that if new string is
      // longer than existing string capacity, it gets truncated.  I don't
      // think it is feasible to try to do cross-process string reallocation.
      nick_name = "Newbie";
      nick.SetValue(nick_name);
      // note: should throw exception if in exception enabled and failed.
    }
  }

---

code:

---

   BBB
   BBB
   BBB
BBB...BBB
BBB.>.BBB
BBB...BBB
   BBB
   BBB
   BBB

---