Chronotools - conjugator

Chronotools supports conjugation - inflecting the character names depending on context.

Here I'll explain how it was done for Finnish.

This consists of the following sections:

• Planning
• Configuration
• Program code
• Binding the code to ROM

First you need to find out which conjugations you're using.
You need to be a expert in the grammar of your language to do it properly.
For Finnish, they were the following:

                        Example names
Form                   ZGX     R66     Pekka   Magus      Crono  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
genitive/accusative    ZGX:n   R66:n   Pekan   Maguksen   Cronon
partitive              ZGX:ää  R66:a   Pekkaa  Magusta    Cronoa
inessive               ZGX:ssä R66:ssa Pekassa Maguksessa Cronossa
adessive               ZGX:llä R66:lla Pekalla Maguksella Cronolla
ablative               ZGX:ltä R66:lta Pekalta Magukselta Cronolta
allative               ZGX:lle R66:lle Pekalle Magukselle Cronolle
elative                ZGX:stä R66:sta Pekasta Maguksesta Cronosta
abessive               ZGX:ttä R66:tta Pekatta Maguksetta Cronotta
translative            ZGX:ksi R66:ksi Pekaksi Magukseksi Cronoksi
essive                 ZGX:nä  R66:na  Pekkana Maguksena  Cronona
illative               ZGX:ään R66:een Pekkaan Magukseen  Cronoon

The "Form" here refers to the linguistic name of the conjugation.
The other columns are examples of how different names are conjugated in that form.

Next you must configure each conjugation. For this there's the [conjugator] section in your configuration file. It is expected to consist of setup clauses.

Here's part of what it is in the Finnish version:

[conjugator]
# Setup each conjugation.
#  First param:
#    The function name that handles the conjugation   
#    (as defined in file codefn)
#  Second param:
#    List of instances in your script that will
#    be replaced with conjugation code when inserting.
#  Third param:
#    String that represents the maximum length
#    the conjugation adds to the name
#
# c=crono m=marle l=lucca r=robo f=frog a=ayla u=magus e=epoch
# 1=member1 2=member2 3=member3
setup "Do_A" "
 cCronoa,mMarlea,lLuccaa,rRobosta,fFrogia,fFroggia,
 aAylaa,uMagusta,uMaguksea,eEpochia,
 1[member1]:a,2[member2]:a,3[member3]:a,
 1[member1]:ä,2[member2]:ä,3[member3]:ä" ":ta"

setup "Do_LLA" "
 cCronolla,mMarlella,lLuccalla,lLucalla,rRoboksella,fFrogilla,
 aAylalla,uMaguksella,uMagusilla,eEpochilla,
 1[member1]:lla,2[member2]:lla,3[member3]:lla,
 1[member1]:llä,2[member2]:llä,3[member3]:llä" "kella"

The first parameter of setup is the function name that is responsible of handling this conjugation.

The second parameter is the list of all strings that the conjugator will assume as a call to this conjugation. The parameter is commaseparated and each string begins with a letter: c for Crono, m for Marle, l for Lucca, r for Robo, f for Frog, a for Ayla, u for Magus, e for Epoch, 1 for the first member of party, 2 for the second member of party and 3 for the third member of the party.

These names are expected to be found in the script, and they will be replaced with calls to the conjugator engine with the respective character name. In other words, these names listed will not be rendered as-is.

The third parameter is a string that is used by the script wrapping code. It describes the widest possible string that the conjugation could append to the character name.

This is the hardest part for average people.
Have a look at DOCS/ct-conj.code (the Finnish conjugator as an example) and try to grasp it.
Sorry, I can't help you more than this. Yes, it requires some programming.

Anyway, when you are done with your code file, you just compile it with utils/compile, combine it with ct-conj.a65 and assemble it with snescom. Basically, once you have snescom installed, you can just do make ct-conj.o65 and that should do it.

Add the following lines to your ct.cfg in the [linker] section:

# CONJUGATOR
load_code "ct-conj.o65"
add_call_of "Conjugator"         $C258C2 1 false

This tells the insertor that it must include code from ct-conj.o65 and that the Conjugator routine will be called from the ROM address $C258C2.

I hope I didn't forget anything.

Ask me for help if you didn't get it :)