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 3.6.6 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

                        - - - - - - - - - - -

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 or M2 Macs running macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) to
            13 (Ventura) (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.

                        - - - - - - - - - - -

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.