Recurring problems with simutrans-experimental.xml

[neroden]

I've now had quite a lot of instances where simutrans-experimental.xml from an older version of the game caused a crash on startup with a newer version, usually due to the parser complaining that it wasn't seeing what it was looking for.

I don't even know where to start debugging this.  Perhaps the .xml storage method can be deactivated?  It's not human-readable anyway, and the alternative methods of storing files seem to work better.

[jamespetts]

Neroden,

this is caused when the format of simutrans-experimental.xml is changed (by changing the load/save routine in einstelgullen_t) without incrementing the version number. It will only happen when upgrading from one commit on the -devel branch to another, and should not affect end-users. This issue (a crash rather than a polite error message with an incompatible settings.xml) is equally present in -Standard, to the best of my knowledge.

[neroden]

Neroden,

this is caused when the format of simutrans-experimental.xml is changed (by changing the load/save routine in einstelgullen_t) without incrementing the version number. It will only happen when upgrading from one commit on the -devel branch to another, and should not affect end-users. This issue (a crash rather than a polite error message with an incompatible settings.xml) is equally present in -Standard, to the best of my knowledge.

Ah, I see.  It's exceedingly irritating as it means I have to reset the "world creation settings" before game start basically every single time I try a new version of the game engine (since the default 256x256 is kind of unpleasant).

[jamespetts]

Yes, I know :-( Actually, not every time that you try a new version - just every time that I change the save game format. One of the perils of being a developer, I suppose. I'm not sure that there's an easy way around this, though - it works for release versions, after all...

[neroden]

I'm not sure that there's an easy way around this, though

Change the hard-coded defaults to my favored defaults.