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Using Romlister's advanced command line functions--Help!

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jukingeo:

--- Quote from: Hoopz on February 07, 2011, 09:32:26 pm ---
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/RL_tutorials

There's a section for Advanced Searching.    ;D

--- End quote ---


Yes, I did.  But I really didn't find the specifics that I needed.   Even though the topic is on Advanced Searching, it still only covers the basics. 

Normally I don't need this king of level of searching within Romlister.   But you can see the problem I am facing if I don't filter out the multi-player games that have dedicated player controls.  With the bartop cabinet, I really can only set it up with single player games and those multi-player games that offer alternating players.

Thanx,
Geo

NOP:

--- Quote from: jukingeo on February 07, 2011, 08:44:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: NOP on February 07, 2011, 01:11:44 pm ---ok, you'd need to have a input file with nplayers.ini built into it.  If you do, you should be able to do this:

add to the end of your -find command line:

 & '2P alt'

That would force all games it comes up with to be 2 player alternating.  You'd maybe want to dig into nplayers.ini file to see what all the possibilities are, then just chain them together like:

 & ( '2P alt' | '4P alt' )


--- End quote ---

Ok, couple more questions:

1) My dilemma is that if I did a search for 2 (or more) player alternating games as you have presented it above, it would filter out 1 player games since alt would = '0'.  So I would need a search that would preserve all one player games AND filter out all multi-player games that don't offer alternating players.   Is that kind of filtering possible?

--- End quote ---

I think it's still pretty much the same thing as I offered up before.
You want "2p alt" or "1p".  I figured that out by looking at nplayers.ini file.  Single player games are only listed as "1P", so:

 & ( '2P alt' | '1P' )

seems to do the trick.  If this brings in games that don't work in your environment, let me know (give me titles of games that should or should not be in the list) and we will try and find a way of fine tuning the filter even further.  

For this search, we're not using "Alternating="1"" data which comes from controls.dat, we're using the Nplayers data.  If you didn't merge your xml list with that data, you're kind of SOL from searching on it though!


--- Quote ---2) Do you have a document that lists the proper format or rather the proper syntax for more advanced searches like this?

--- End quote ---

I guess I don't see this as being that much more advanced than any of the other searches that are already documented.

jukingeo:

--- Quote from: NOP on February 08, 2011, 09:53:05 am ---
I think it's still pretty much the same thing as I offered up before.
You want "2p alt" or "1p".  I figured that out by looking at nplayers.ini file.  Single player games are only listed as "1P", so:

 & ( '2P alt' | '1P' )

seems to do the trick.  If this brings in games that don't work in your environment, let me know (give me titles of games that should or should not be in the list) and we will try and find a way of fine tuning the filter even further.
--- End quote ---

Yeah, that DID seem to do the trick!  I did noticed a few anomalies, but that may not be from this search.   I did see that a couple of 2 player simultaneous games entered my search.

My criteria was 2-4 Way Joystick, 6 Buttons (or less), Spinner, Pedal, and with your adjustment Single Player and Multiplayer-Alternating only.

The 2 player simultaneous games that erroneously showed up are:

Fire Truck
Seawolf II
Space Laser

Since there are so few in this search, I could easily remove the offending titles, but it does spark my curiosity as to why they still show up.


--- Quote ---For this search, we're not using "Alternating="1"" data which comes from controls.dat, we're using the Nplayers data.  If you didn't merge your xml list with that data, you're kind of SOL from searching on it though!
--- End quote ---

That was what I was trying to do initially was using "Alternating = 1", but that didn't work.  But yes, when I did my merge I did locate an Nplayers file for my rom set.


--- Quote ---
I guess I don't see this as being that much more advanced than any of the other searches that are already documented.


--- End quote ---

Well, perhaps for you it isn't more advanced (as you probably work with it every day), but for the average "Joe" here it is pretty advanced.   I was thinking if you had a search examples section (in the wiki) that would outline some common command line search syntax that would be a BIG help.  I would think that this example would be one of those common scenarios as if someone only has one set of player controls, it would be prudent to filter out the games that have simultaneous multi-player controls.

It would be kind of embarrassing to host a party and someone selects a game that requires 2 (or more) sets of controls and when player 2 comes up, he/she can't control the game.

Thanx for the help!

Geo

NOP:

--- Quote ---Fire Truck
Seawolf II
Space Laser

--- End quote ---

Fire truck says 1P for the numplayers data.  I guess, sorta, that it is, kinda. 
Seawolf II is funny.  There are dipswitch settings that say this:
   <dipswitch name="Play Time">
   <dipvalue name="1P 40s/2P 45s"/>
   <dipvalue name="1P 50s/2P 60s"/>
   <dipvalue name="1P 60s/2P 75s"/>
   <dipvalue name="1P 70s/2P 90s" default="yes"/>

So RL saw that "1P 40s/2P" and thought "Yep, 1P, we want that one!"

To avoid this in the future, we have to get RL to look at more data that just "1P".
The nplayer data in search is surrounded by <nplayers>xx</nplayers> so changing the search item to:

& ( '<nplayers>2P alt</nplayers>' | '<nplayers>1P</nplayers>' )

forces RL to examine a bigger text chunk, and thus won't get tripped up by the dipvalue name stuff above.
(and that's even overkill for the amount of text needed to stop the false finds)


Space Laser didn't come up in my search, and I don't know why it came up in yours.  The only explanation is if somehow the xml or other input data has changed.  I think I'm using a slightly crusty MAME 135 xml data with a nplyers.ini that is at least a year old.

You can 2x click on any game in your list and see the XML data beneath it.  All you have to do is visually scan the text there and if you see your search criteria of "1P" or "2P alt" then that's why that title got pulled in.




--- Quote ---Well, perhaps for you it isn't more advanced (as you probably work with it every day), but for the average "Joe" here it is pretty advanced.   I was thinking if you had a search examples section (in the wiki) that would outline some common command line search syntax that would be a BIG help.  I would think that this example would be one of those common scenarios as if someone only has one set of player controls, it would be prudent to filter out the games that have simultaneous multi-player controls.

--- End quote ---

well, errr. ah, it is a wiki ya know.  If you add it, I'll check it for accuracy.
This can be your true test to see if you've learned how it works, by explaining it to others.


--- Quote ---It would be kind of embarrassing to host a party and someone selects a game that requires 2 (or more) sets of controls and when player 2 comes up, he/she can't control the game.

--- End quote ---
yes, this is the exact reason that RL was born.

Hoopz:

--- Quote from: NOP on February 09, 2011, 09:52:39 am ---
You can 2x click on any game in your list and see the XML data beneath it.  All you have to do is visually scan the text there and if you see your search criteria of "1P" or "2P alt" then that's why that title got pulled in.


--- End quote ---
I didn't realize you could double click on it and see the data.  That's a great feature.   :applaud:

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