Please Help with Strings

[AltiusBimm]

I am a fairly advanced GML programmer, but on this I’m stumped.
The RPG—on whose development team-of-two I am—requires a tile system which is instance-based.
At first I failed to realize this, and I designed a tile system that was tile-based—it worked well until we found it didn’t work well at all for creating raised tiles.
But enough with the back story…

(In the end I designed an instance-based, raised-tile-capable tile system which works fine.)

…what with I need help now is this:
The save/load system.

I had a save/load system which worked fine with the tile-based tile system; but that’s irrelevant now.
Most of all I need help with the string loading aspects of my save/load system.
I have several ideas, and I will show you the most promising one—but the strings it processes come up empty!
Here is the save file (a text file) which holds the tile definitions:

,
#
#150,12000,d

I now realize that using # defines a new line so that had to have been messing me up, however after correcting this mistake, the loading process still fails


{
separation_character = file_read_string();

The first line of the save file stores what character will be used as the marker for cutting the property string into pieces.

new_tile_character = file_read_string();

The second line of the save file stores what character will be used to mark the beginning of each line that defines a tile. A line without this character as its first character will be regarded as a comment line.

properties_of_the_current_tile = file_read_string();

From the third line of the save file and onward, each line is either a comment or a tile definition.
In the future I will add a

while(file_eof() = false)

block to make the loading script continue to check until the end of the save file, but for now I can’t even get one to work.

The problem seems to be here:

if(string_char_at(properties_of_the_current_tile,0) = "#")
{
 properties_of_the_current_tile =
  string_copy(properties_of_the_current_tile,
   1,
   string_length(properties_of_the_current_tile));
 while(properties_of_the_current_tile != "")
  {
   cut_point_of_the_current_property =
    string_pos(separation_character,properties_of_the_current_tile);

   //Remove the current property from the list:
   properties_of_the_current_tile =
    string_copy(properties_of_the_current_tile,
     0,
     cut_point_of_the_current_property);
  }
}
}

Obviously, in the above block there is no assignment to store the individual properties collected by the process of making the sub-strings. I will add that at some time, it hardly matters though, I have tried it at home and it also fails.

I just can’t think of what’s wrong, I clearly need to do more work on all this, yet I just don’t have the wit for dealing with saved strings in this way—it’s so hard to tell where the problem is because the whole process is so invisible.

I come here as a near-last resort, hoping to get some discussion going—just about any opinion would be better than nothing! Thanks.

[IsmAvatar]

The code is too choppy, can you please include the entire code and/or all codes involved, So I know how to assemble it.
or upload/email it so we may see the full picture.

[AltiusBimm]

Yes sir!
(I thought this issue might come up)
It may take a bit, though.

[AltiusBimm]

(More coherent)


Create Event Code
(note that this is not highly refined)
{
file = get_open_filename("Text Files|*.txt","")
file_open_read(file);
separation_character = file_read_string();
new_tile_character = file_read_string();

properties_of_the_current_tile = file_read_string();
str[0] = 0;
str[1] = 0;
str[2] = 0;
str[3] = 0;
str[4] = 0;
i = 0;
properties_of_the_current_tile =
string_copy(properties_of_the_current_tile,
 1,
 string_length(properties_of_the_current_tile)-100);

repeat(3)
 {
  cut_point_of_the_current_property =
   string_pos(separation_character,properties_of_the_current_tile);
                    //Remove the current property from the list:
  str[i] =
   string_copy(properties_of_the_current_tile,
    0,
    cut_point_of_the_current_property-1);

  properties_of_the_current_tile =
   string_copy(properties_of_the_current_tile,
    0,
    cut_point_of_the_current_property);
  i+=1;
 }
file_close();
}

Draw Event Code
{
draw_text(0,0,'First = "' + string(str[0])+'"');
draw_text(0,10,'Second = "' + string(str[0])+'"');
draw_text(0,20,'Third = "' + string(str[0])+'"');
draw_text(0,40,"" + string(separation_character));
draw_text(0,50,"" + string(new_tile_character));
draw_text(0,30,'<' + properties_of_the_current_tile + '>');
}

[IsmAvatar]

you called file_read_string three times without calling file_read_ln. This causes it to return the same value each time.
the correct method would be as follows

file_open_read(file)
variable1 = file_read_string()
file_readln()
variable2 = file_read_string()
file_readln()
variable3 = file_read_string()
file_close()

and this can be made into 3/4 lines of code using arrays, loops, and the file_eof function, but you're not using too much code, so there's no reason to confuse yourself so, yet.

[AltiusBimm]

file_read_ln()
Oh, Ism, who would have believed my incompetence!!!
I have used that technique before, how embarrassing.
THANKYOU! I’m really sorry I even needed to ask—that’s how we learn though.
’nuff said.