NetHack 3.7.0 work-in-progress -- General information

NetHack 3.7 is an enhancement to the dungeon exploration game NetHack, which is a distant descendent of Rogue and Hack, and a direct descendent of NetHack 3.6.

NetHack 3.7.0 work-in-progress is not a release of NetHack. As a .0 version, and still very early in its development cycle, there has already been changes made, and there will continue to be many more prior to an eventual release. The file doc/fixes3-7-0.txt in the source distribution will be updated with a list of fixes as they are committed.

In short -- there are likely to be bugs. Don't treat NetHack-3.7 branch as released code, and if stability is paramount, then the most recent NetHack 3.6.7 release is safest for you.

We're making the .0 work-in-progress available so that you can observe, test out, and contribute to its development. Constructive suggestions, GitHub pull requests, and bug reports are all welcome and encouraged.

The file doc/fixes3-7-0.txt in the source distribution has a full list of bug-fixes included so far, as well as brief mentions of some of the other code changes. The text in there was written for the development team's own use and is provided "as is", so please do not ask us to further explain the entries in that file. Some entries might be considered "spoilers", particularly in the "new features" section.

Along with the game improvements and bug fixes, NetHack 3.7 strives to make some general architectural improvements to the game or to its building process. Among them:

• Remove barriers to building NetHack on one platform and operating system, for later execution on another (possibly quite different) platform and/or operating system. That capability is generally known as "cross-compiling." See the file "Cross-compiling" in the top-level folder for more information on that.

• Replace the build-time "yacc and lex"-based level compiler, the "yacc and lex"-based dungeon compiler, and the quest text file processing done by NetHack's "makedefs" utility, with Lua text alternatives that are loaded and processed by the game during play.

• Write game savefiles and bonesfiles in a more portable and consistent way to open up the possibility of utilizing them between different platforms, such as between your desktop computer and your hand-held device.

• Add support to make the game restartable without exit (a.k.a. "play again" support). Toward that end, many previously scattered and separate variables have been gathered into central 'ga' through 'gz' structures in decl.h/decl.c. That central ability to reinitialize the variables will benefit the porting effort to some platforms that are under consideration where "play again" is typical.

Here are some other general notes on the changes in NetHack 3.7 that were not considered spoilers:

• automatic annotation "gateway to Moloch's Sanctum" for vibrating square level once that square's location becomes known (found or magic mapped); goes away once sanctum temple is found (entered or high altar mapped)

• savefile: add support to deconstruct internal data structures down into their individual fields and save those fields instead of the entire struct

• savefile: use little-endian format for fields where that makes a difference

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Please read items (1), (2) and (3) BEFORE doing anything with your new code.

1. Unpack the code in a dedicated new directory. We will refer to that directory as the 'Top' directory. It makes no difference what you call it.

2. Having unpacked, you should have a file called 'Files' in your Top directory.

   This file contains the list of all the files you now SHOULD have in each directory. Please check the files in each directory against this list to make sure that you have a complete set.

   This file also contains a list of what files are created during the build process.

   The names of the directories listed should not be changed unless you are ready to go through the makefiles and the makedefs program and change all the directory references in them.

3. Before you do anything else, please read carefully the file called "license" in the 'dat' subdirectory. It is expected that you comply with the terms of that license, and we are very serious about it.

4. If you are attempting to build NetHack on one platform/processor, to produce a game on a different platform/processor it may behoove you to read the file "Cross-compiling" in your Top directory.

5. If everything is in order, you can now turn to trying to get the program to compile and run on your particular system. It is worth mentioning that the default configuration is SysV/Sun/Solaris2.x (simply because the code was housed on such a system).

   The files sys//Install. were written to guide you in configuring the program for your operating system. The files win//Install. are available, where necessary, to help you in configuring the program for particular windowing environments. Reading them, and the man pages, should answer most of your questions.

   At the time of the most recent official release, NetHack 3.6, it had been tested to run/compile on:

   Intel Pentium or better running Linux, BSDI
   Intel Pentium or better running Windows 10 or 11
   Intel-based, or Apple M1, M2, M3 Macs running
       macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) to macOS 14 (Sonoma)
       (follow the instructions in sys/unix/NewInstall.unx)
   Intel 80386 or greater running MS-DOS with DPMI
       built via djgpp compiler (native or Linux-hosted cross-compiler)
   OpenVMS (aka VMS) V8.4 on Alpha and on Integrity/Itanium/IA64
   

   Previous versions of NetHack were tested and known to run on the following systems, but it is unknown if they can still build and execute NetHack 3.6 or NetHack 3.7:

   Apple Macintosh running MacOS 7.5 or higher, LinuxPPC, BeOS 4.0
   Atari ST/TT/Falcon running TOS (or MultiTOS) with GCC
   AT&T 3B1 running System V (3.51)
   AT&T 3B2/600 & 3B2/622 running System V R3.2.1
   AT&T 3B2/1000 Model 80 running System V R3.2.2
   AT&T 3B4000 running System V
   AT&T 6386 running System V R3.2
   Commodore Amiga running AmigaDOS 3.0 or higher with SAS/C 6.x
           (but see Makefile.ami about DICE and Manx)
   Data General AViiON systems running DG/UX
   DEC Alpha/VMS (aka OpenVMS AXP), running V1.x through V7.1
   DEC VAX/VMS, running V4.6 through V7.1
   DEC vaxen running BSD, Ultrix
   Decstations running Ultrix 3.1, 4.x
   Encore Multimax running UMAX 4.2
   Gould NP1 running UTX 3/2
   HP 9000s300 running HP-UX
   HP 9000s700 running HP-UX 9.x, 10.x, 11.x
   H/PC Pro devices running Windows CE 2.11 and higher.
   IBM PC/RT and RS/6000 running AIX 3.x
   IBM PS/2 and AT compatibles running OS/2 - 2.0 and up with GCC emx
   IBM PS/2 and AT compatibles running OS/2 1.1 - 2.0 (and probably
      Warp) with Microsoft 6.0, and OS/2 2.0 and up with IBM CSet++ 2.0.
   Intel 80386 or greater (or clone) running 386BSD
   Intel x86 running a version of Windows 7 or 8 or prior to XP.
   Mips M2000 running RiscOS 4.1
   NeXT running Mach (using BSD configuration)
   Palm Size PC 1.1 devices running Windows CE 2.11
   Pocket PC devices running Windows CE 3.0 and higher
   Pyramid 9820x running OSx 4.4c
   SGI Iris running IRIX
   Stardent Vistra 800 running SysV R4.0
   Stride 460 running UniStride 2.1
   Sun-3s, -4s, and -386is running SunOS 3.x
   Sun-3s and -386is running SunOS 4.x
   "Sun SPARC"-based machine running SunOS 4.x, Solaris 2.x, or Solaris 7
   Valid Logic Systems SCALD-System
   

   Previous versions, using a cross-compiler hosted on another platform, such as win32, could also build the following from source: Pocket PC devices running Windows CE 3.0 and higher H/PC Pro devices running Windows CE 2.11 and higher Palm Size PC 1.1 devices running Windows CE 2.11

   Unless otherwise mentioned, the compiler used was the OS-vendor's C compiler.

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If you have problems building the game, or you find bugs in it, we recommend filing a bug report from our "Contact Us" web page at: https://www.nethack.org/common/contact.html Please include the version information from #version or the command line option --version in the appropriate field.

A public repository of the latest NetHack code that we've made available can be obtained via git here: https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack or https://sourceforge.net/p/nethack/NetHack/

When sending correspondence, please observe the following: o Please be sure to include your machine type, OS, and patchlevel. o Please avoid sending us binary files (e.g. save files or bones files). If you have found a bug and think that your save file would aid in solving the problem, send us a description in words of the problem, your machine type, your operating system, and the version of NetHack. Tell us that you have a save file, but do not actually send it. You may then be contacted by a member of the development team with the address of a specific person to send the save file to. o Though we make an effort to reply to each bug report, it may take some time before you receive feedback. This is especially true during the period immediately after a new release, when we get the most bug reports. o We don't give hints for playing the game. o Don't bother to ask when the next version will be out or you can expect to receive a stock answer.

If you want to submit a patch for the NetHack source code via email directly, you can direct it to this address: nethack-bugs (at) nethack.org

If a feature is not accepted you are free, of course, to post the patches to the net yourself and let the marketplace decide their worth.

All of this amounts to the following: If you decide to apply a free-lanced patch to your 3.6 code, you are welcome to do so, of course, but we won't be able to provide support or receive bug reports for it.

In our own patches, we will assume that your code is synchronized with ours.

              -- Good luck, and happy Hacking --

$NHDT-Date: 1652133501 2022/05/09 21:58:21 $ $NHDT-Branch: NetHack-3.7 $:$NHDT-Revision: 1.97 $

Copyright (c) 2012 by Michael Allison

NetHack may be freely redistributed. See license for details.