[Xqf-developer] Re: Re: XQF Q3 bug fix. (fwd)

[Brian N. <bn...@sp...>]

Thanks, I appreciate your looking into this.

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Ludwig Nussel wrote:
> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 23:23:03 +0100
> To: Brian Nunziato <bn...@sp...>, Alex Burger
> <al...@bi...>
> From: Ludwig Nussel <lud...@gm...>
> Reply-To: xqf...@li...
> Subject: Re: XQF Q3 bug fix. (fwd)
> 
> 
> Thanks for caring about xqf's usability, Alex sent me your patches
> to have a look at it.
> 
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Brian Nunziato <bn...@sp...>
> 
> > Evey mod I have ever installed, uses an all lower case directory name. 
> So
> > what my patch does is convert the fs_game/game/gamename returned from
> qstat
> > to lowercase.  I've tested it locally and it appears to work pretty
> well.
> 
> In short, the patch seems to be a good idea but I don't intend to
> apply it as is. IMO q3_exec would be a more suitable place to do the
> conversion to lowercase and free the string afterwards. Also, the
> conversion should be done in a way that is not prone to buffer
> overflows.
>

From a developers standpoint it may be better suited in q3_exec. 
Personally, I liked seeing the mod directory listed in xqf consistently.  I
went back last night and pulled my existing change and rewrote it using
Glib functions to allocate/manipulate/free the data in q3_exec.  I still
get the desired results of the fs_game parameter being lowercase.  If you
are interested in seeing that code, I can send it to you.

> Most of the uppercase mod names come from qstat 2.4e which queries
> quake3 servers in a way to get the most rules from the server and
> uses "gamename" to determine the mod. Quake3 uses a different method
> which returns less rules, but that rules contain "game" to determine
> the mod, this does also properly report "missionpack" for Team Arena
> Servers. I modified qstat to combine both query methods and sent the
> patch to the qstat author. He will not use it literally but will
> include it's functionality in the next release (I actually rewrote
> the whole q3 function because I found his code ugly, but he likes
> his code too much ;-)). So the TA Problem will be solved with the
> next qstat release. It will also solve most, but not all of the
> upper/lowercase problems. There seem to be a few broken servers out
> there where even "game" is wrong. Your assumption was that lowercase
> is always right, but there are mods that really use mixed case
> names. I have currently not the time to test whether always using
> lowercase won't brake quake3 on that servers, so I would appreciate
> it if you could check if it works. A server that reports "TribalCTF"
> is here:
> 
> 156  24.25.32.68:27960  Wilmington NC RR TribalCTF 2.0  tbctf_ele1  1 of
> 18
> 
> I've attached my qstat patch. As I already said, it will not make
> it's way into qstat in this form but should be suitable to find
> servers which still report uppercase mods.
> 
> cu
> Ludwig
> 
> PS: I would like to move the discussion to the xqf-developer list if
> you don't mind.
> 
> -- 
> (o_  Lud...@gm...
> //\  PGP Key ID: FF8135CE
> V_/_ ICQ:        52166811
> 
>

The problem here seems to be more of a Quake 3 problem more than xqf or
qstat.  If I run a mod from the command line, I must specify the mod
directory name as the fs_game parameter.  The parameter is case-sensitive.
If the fs_game parameter does not exactly match the directory name then the
mod's qvm's will not be loaded and fall back to baseq3 qvm's.  Here's the
problem though.  Even though a mod dir wasn't found a mod subdirectory will
be used/created in ~/.q3a.  Now, to make matters worse.  If you connect to
a server using xqf and the mod directory passed in fs_game doesn't exit, it
falls back to baseq3.  But, when connecting Quake 3 realises the use of a
mod and switches to it correctly.  What it doesn't do is use the proper mod
directory in ~/.q3a, it uses what was passed as the fs_game parameter no
matter how wrong it may be.  If you don't pass the fs_game parameter,
quake3 will load the mod and use the right mod subdirectory in ~/.q3a. 
Problem is it overwrites the q3config.cfg with the
~/.q3a/baseq3/q3config.cfg.

The way xqf stands today with case variations of the fs_game parameter, you
wind up with multiple mod subdirectories in ~/.q3a.  As a user, this is a
pain in the neck.  My q3config.cfg for a mod winds up in multiple
directories.  I think it would be better if xqf created the fs_game
parameter consistently. 

Xqf could check if the fs_game parameter exists as a quake3 mod
subdirectory prior to launching quake3. But, what do you do in in the event
that you can't find it?

I don't have Tribal CTF and went to download it for testing. I found this
interesting quote on the downloads page.

* Note for the Mac/Linux download: FilePlanet reports "windows
installer.zip" but this IS the Mac/Linux zip file! Linux users must be
aware of the fact that the TribalCTF folder contains capitols. If you're
having problems, try renaming the folder to tribalctf. This is a known bug
that will be fixed with the next patch/release.

The use of lowercase mod direcory names is an assumtion, based on what I
have seen.  All of the major mods RA3, OSP, CPMA, TA, Urban Terror,
Threewave all use lowercase.  Even Tribal CTF is calling it a "known bug"
and recommend renaming the directory to lowercase.  Potentially, this could
break some mods. What about adding a note to the quake3 config tab by the
fs_game option. Something to the extent of making sure all mod
subdirectories use all lowercase.  Just a thought.  I will apply your patch
to qstat and see if I can find any other mods that use mixed or uppercase
in the game name.

Brian Nunziato