Item distributor

Hello everyone,
Wasn't online for awhile and it nice to see that the community is still active.

To my question,
How is the item distributor works? you fill the fields and it send the form data to a file I guess and the game read that file and translate it ingame to what ever it should be.
So where can I found this file?
And if you wanna know what do I need it is cause I'm working on a system that works with paypal and the item distributor so people wont wait till the admin log in.
And yea I will share it.

Thanks,Imri.

WB Imri. :D:

The Sonnb ItemDistributor program was a neat way to explain how the server manages the Post Master, but is incomplete, (can only post one item at a time to any one player) and even it's original author admits that it's unnecessary, as Notepad is sufficient.

The "game" doesn't read the file. The server looks for the file when a player tries to interact with the Post Master NPC. If no file for the player exists, the Post Master give his default response. "National Items are distributed from here." Or what ever.

If a file is found, the first item in the file is removed, and given to the player. Then, if there are no more items in the file (IMS) the file is deleted.

Where you find the file is in the PostBox folder which matches the DataServer\Warehouse folder for that player. (obviously)

Thank you !
Into the post box folder there are many folders that named as numbers "1,2,3,4,5" as the userdata folder.
How can I know which folder belongs to whom?

Thanks, Imri.

Well, before XP, I would simply search for the players name in Explorer. But Microsoft changed the search wizard to the point where Vista and 7 usually don't find a pattern like "player.dat" anywhere, despite the fact that "dir player.dat /s/b" will still give me the exact location in a fraction of a second from the command line. (another reason why I increasingly give up on the GUI methods in Windows and drop down to the command line)

Gregoo has posted an algorithm to identify the name... and I'm ashamed to say I've lost that post for the minuet. :$: My filing is usually much better than that, and that information was pure gold. :(:
---EDIT---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gregoo

It's an ASCII sum modulo 256.

Code:

---

public static int Number(string Input)
{
        int Number = 0;

        Input = Input.ToUpper();
       
        for(int i = 0; i < Input.Length; i++)
        {
                Number += (int) Input[i];
        }
       
        return Number % 256;
}

---

---

Found it again, it was this post. :D:

Strangely, I had to search my "saved pages" on my hard disk. (something I tend to do if something is useful to me personally) That done, my backup had enough information to locate the post on RZ.

The source Gregoo gives is mostly C source, with one C++ "method". (ToUpper)

So it's pretty simple. But if you are using a more strongly "typed" language (C#, some of the C++ Type Libraries' "string" types, Delphi or modern Basic syntax') then you may need to convert a "char" to a "byte".

Assembler is (of course) less strongly typed than even C, so there is no such thing as a "char" and an offset in a string is a byte. :wink:

I love you !
The Input represent the character name or the id name?
And I can't understand a part of the code

Code:

---

Input[i]

---

What does it mean? reminds me the CharAt function (Java).

Thanks.

assuming the Input is an array of words:

Input = "SheenBR"

Input[0] = S
Input[1] = h
Input[2] = e
Input[3] = e
Input[4] = n
Input[5] = B
Input[6] = R

It's defentlly not a char array or array at all, look on the method sign (String Input) it's a string ...
I think I got it:
ID:test
ToUpper ---> TEST
T+E+S+T in ASCII 84+69+83+84 = 320
320%256 = 64
folder name is 64?

it doesnt need to be an array for sure, thats kinda "default" for strings.

in C#:
public static void numDir(string charName,ref int pasta)
{
pasta = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < charName.Length; i++)
{
var letter = Convert.ToChar(charName[i].ToString().ToUpper());
pasta += Convert.ToInt32(letter);
if (pasta >= 256) pasta -= 256;
}
}
to run:

int s = 0;
Funcoes.Pasta("lelejau", ref s);
Console.WriteLine(s.ToString());
Console.Read();
Environment.Exit(1);

This shows exactly 2. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SheenBR

if (pasta >= 256) pasta -= 256;

---

You shouldn't put this inside the loop, you're evaluating it every iteration.
Do a modulo outside the loop like I did (:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tnrh1

It's defentlly not a char array or array at all, look on the method sign (String Input) it's a string ...
I think I got it:
ID:test
ToUpper ---> TEST
T+E+S+T in ASCII 84+69+83+84 = 320
320%256 = 64
folder name is 64?

---

The definition of a "string" is an array of character bytes.

How that array is represented, and how you access the elements of it varies from one programming language to another. Also, several of them have more than one way of representing a "string" in memory. (A good example would be the difference between a StringSZ or a WCharT string in the Win32 API for C or C++... but many Pascal and Basic variants can use SZ / ZSrting (pointer to an array of bytes terminated by a Null byte '\0') or a traditional Basic / Pascal string, with a Word / Long defining the number of characters, followed by the characters themselves, with no terminating character.

In Basic if Input$ = "SheenBR" then:-
Mid$(Input$,0,1) = "S"
Mid$(Input$,1,1) = "e"
Mid$(Input$,2,1) = "e"
Mid$(Input$,3,1) = "n"
Mid$(Input$,4,1) = "B"
Mid$(Input$,5,1) = "R"

And Asc(Mid$(Input$,0,1) = 83

(That's classic Basic, more OO Basics will allow Input.Mid(0,1).Asc)

As for where the input comes from, if you are looking for Player data (like the warehouse) then it comes from the login ID. But if you are looking for Character information, like a players inventory, it comes from the Character (toon) name.