Inform 7 Home Page / Documentation
§11.7. Begin and end
In practice it is not enough to apply "if" to a single phrase alone: we want to give a whole list of phrases to be followed repeatedly, or to be followed only if a condition holds.
We do this by grouping them together, and there are two ways to do this. One is as follows:
To comment upon (whatever - a thing):
if whatever is transparent, say "I see right through this!";
if whatever is an open door:
say "Oh look, an open door!";
if whatever is openable, say "But you could always shut it."
Here we group two phrases together under the same "if". Note that the comma has been replaced by a colon, and that the indentation in the list of phrases shows how they are grouped together. In the example above, the source moves two tabs in from the margin; the maximum allowed is 25.
Indentation is the convention used in this manual and in the examples, but not everybody likes this Pythonesque syntax. So Inform also recognises a more explicit form, in which the beginning and ending are marked with the words "begin" and "end":
To comment upon (whatever - a thing):
if whatever is transparent, say "I see right through this!";
if whatever is an open door
begin;
say "Oh look, an open door!";
if whatever is openable, say "But you could always shut it.";
end if.
(Pythonesque because it's a style popularised by the programming language Python, named in turn after "Monty Python's Flying Circus".)
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 ExampleMatreshka
A SEARCH [room] action that will open every container the player can see, stopping only when there don't remain any that are closed, unlocked, and openable.
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"Matreshka"
Ransacking is an action applying to one thing.
Check ransacking:
if the noun is not the location, say "You can hardly search [the noun] from here." instead.
Carry out ransacking:
while the player can see a closed openable unlocked container (called target):
say "[target]: [run paragraph on]";
try opening the target.
Report ransacking:
say "You can see nothing further worth searching."
The Russian Gift Shop is a room. In the Russian Gift Shop is a large wooden doll. It is closed and openable. In the large wooden doll is a medium wooden doll. It is closed and openable. In the medium wooden doll is a small wooden doll. It is closed and openable. In the small wooden doll is a tiny solid wooden doll.
And now we need to borrow from a later chapter for the command that will make this work:
Understand "search [any visited room]" as ransacking.
Test me with "search gift shop".
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ExamplePrincess and the Pea
The player is unable to sleep on a mattress (or stack of mattresses) because the bottom one has something uncomfortable under it.
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The main point here is that we need to figure out where the stack meets the floor:
"Princess and the Pea"
The Topmost Turret is a room. A mattress is a kind of supporter. A mattress is always enterable. A mattress is portable.
A large mattress is a mattress in the Turret. A medium mattress is a mattress in the Turret. A small mattress is a mattress in the Turret.
Instead of sleeping when the player is on a mattress (called the bed):
let the item be the bed;
while the holder of the item is not a room:
let the item be the holder of the item;
say "You can still feel something very uncomfortable under [the item]."
Instead of sleeping:
say "You can't sleep standing up!"
Instead of looking under a mattress, say "You scout around, but are unable to determine what's causing you this discomfort. If only your maid Winnie were here. She's very good at this."
Test me with "sleep / enter small / sleep / get up / get small / put small on medium / get on small / sleep / get up / g / get medium / put medium on large / get on small / look / sleep".
