When using Understanding as a property with a thing-valued property, Inform throws a compiler error that claims that the property is of a kind which can't be recognised in typed commands. Clearly, things can in general be recognized in typed commands.
This is surely intended behavior, as the error has a list of acceptable properties that does not include things (and allowing things would probably lead to nightmarish regresses if not infinite loops), but the error is a bit jarring, as things are not like snippets and rulebooks.
Steps to reproduce :
Lab is a room.
A marker is a kind of thing. A marker has a thing called the markee.
Understand the markee property as referring to a marker.
The rock is a thing in the lab. The rockmarker is a marker in the Lab. The markee of the rockmarker is the rock.
Additional information :
Error message: Problem. You wrote 'Understand the markee property as referring to a marker' : but that property is of a kind which I can't recognise in typed commands, so that it cannot be understand as describing or referring to something. I can understand either/or properties, properties with a limited list of named possible values, numbers, times of day, or units; but certain built-into-Inform kinds of value (like snippet or rulebook, for instance) I can't use.
See the manual: 17.15 > 17.15. Understanding things by their properties
Reported by : mattweiner
Description :
When using Understanding as a property with a thing-valued property, Inform throws a compiler error that claims that the property is of a kind which can't be recognised in typed commands. Clearly, things can in general be recognized in typed commands.
This is surely intended behavior, as the error has a list of acceptable properties that does not include things (and allowing things would probably lead to nightmarish regresses if not infinite loops), but the error is a bit jarring, as things are not like snippets and rulebooks.
Steps to reproduce :
Additional information :
Error message: Problem. You wrote 'Understand the markee property as referring to a marker' : but that property is of a kind which I can't recognise in typed commands, so that it cannot be understand as describing or referring to something. I can understand either/or properties, properties with a limited list of named possible values, numbers, times of day, or units; but certain built-into-Inform kinds of value (like snippet or rulebook, for instance) I can't use.
imported from: [Mantis 2084] understanding something by a thing-valued property yields a misleading error messageSee the manual: 17.15 > 17.15. Understanding things by their properties