never had an error like the one below

[straggler13]

I have been modding for a long time but I have never had an error like the one below, It has got me stumped. I made some rather long mods to the EDU file and when I tried to run it I got the error message below in the sys log. I tried to erase the first few blank lines that have only ";" at the heaad of each line, but I still get a CTD. Any help would be greatly valued.


15:14:45.078 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE2
15:14:45.078 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Aug 3 2007 version bld-medieval2-kingdoms-104 (45562) ===
15:14:45.078 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack
15:14:45.078 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack
15:14:45.078 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack
15:14:45.078 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack
15:14:45.078 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack
15:14:45.078 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack
15:14:47.281 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/Stainless_Steel_6/data/export_descr_unit.txt, at line 1, column 1
Unknown identifier when new type expected.
15:14:47.281 [data.invalid] [error] DATABASE_TABLE error found : error reading record from file mods/Stainless_Steel_6/data/export_descr_unit.txt.

[Zombimode]

Could you post your EDU?

[Gigantus]

This is the beginning of the EDU:

type             baghlah	
dictionary       baghlah      ; Baghlah	
category         ship	
class            light	
voice_type       Light	
soldier          Peasants, 50, 0, 1	
ship             heavy warship	
attributes       sea_faring, can_withdraw	
formation        50, 50, 75, 75, 1, square	
stat_health      1, 0	
stat_pri         18, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, slashing, none, 0, 1	
stat_pri_attr    no	
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1	
stat_sec_attr    no	
stat_pri_armour  0, 22, 0, flesh	
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh	
stat_heat        0	
stat_ground      0, 0, 0, 0	
stat_mental      8, normal, trained	
stat_charge_dist 20	
stat_fire_delay  0	
stat_food        60, 300	
stat_cost        4, 1190, 350, 250, 250, 1150, 4, 280	
armour_ug_levels 0	
armour_ug_models Peasants	
ownership        egypt, turks, seljuks, moors, timurids	
;unit_info        18, 0, 22

Lines with a ; in front of them are like REM in DOS = they are not processed and are used to leave notes inside the text files.

[straggler13]

Below is my attached problem EDU and a pasted part of the first few lines: which the sys log says is where the problem lies. I am assuming the you were asking me to post it here. If I am mistaken, please accept my apology here.

; my mod glm from my mod edu file w ss 6-1+ BB S+M mod
;
; Medieval 2 Total War Unit Details spreadsheet-generated unit descriptions
;
;Data entries are as follows
; Type The internal name of the unit. Note this not necessarily the same as the on screen name
; dictionary The tag used to look up the on screen name
;
;Category and class define the rough type of the unit. They're used for setting some default attributes and for
;determining where units go in formation amongst other things such as tags to support AI army formation
; category infantry, cavalry, siege, handler, ship or non_combatant
; class light, heavy, missile or spearmen
;
; voice_type Used to determine the type of voice used by the unit
;
; soldier Name of the soldier model to use (from descr_models_battle.txt)
; followed by the number of ordinary soldiers in the unit
; followed by the number of extras (pigs dogs, elephants, chariots artillery pieces etc attached to the unit)
; followed by the collision mass of the men. 1.0 is normal. [Only applies to infantry]
; officer Name of officer model. There may be up to 0-3 officer lines per unit
; ship Type of ship used if applicable
; engine Type of siege engine used by unit
; animal The type of (non ridden) animals used by the unit
; mount Type of animal or vehicle ridden on
;
; mount_effect Factors to add when in combat against enemy units that have the specified mounts
; Up to three factors may be specified, which may be classes of mount, or specific types

FIND ATTACHMENT BELOW:
;Attachment 21956

[Gigantus]

Link doesn't work.
Make sure it is zipped or in rar format before attaching.

[Kundich]

Okay, this actually has happened to me. My guess is you've saved in Unicode or UTF-8. Open your file. Save As... and set the Encoding line to ANSI. It should clear your problem right up.


Thanks,
ADM

[straggler13]

I praise thee sir...

with great praise!

You have saved me hours of tedious re-do work
which would have been fruitless.

Changed the encoding to ANSI -an old and familiar friend - and the thing worked as designed.
If an old man can repay your kindness, and generosity in taking the time to read, heed, and reply to my plight, I am at you beck and call.
Sincerely, if you need any help on the simpler, but perhaps more tedious aspects of any of your mod endeavors, please do not hesitate to ask it of me. As a minimum I owe you several hours' work.
Thanks again,
GLM (S13)

[Kundich]

Did it clear it up? Never mind, I see that it did. Absolutely no problem. Glad to help.


Thanks,
ADM

I tend to think that these forums are about information sharing, so I really am very glad to help.

I've found that Brandon's EDU editor saves in Unicode(at least when mass modding a couple of stats), so that's how I learned of the error.

Just in case, when you are modding your text files, you may want to make sure that these are set to Unicode. Strange, I know, but I think they all should be Unicode.

I wrote a C# app that made trait and trigger writing a snap for me, but did not set the Save As... function of my app to write the trait text as Unicode, so I couldn't boot M2TW. That's how I learned about that. Took me a few minutes to discover my error, but once I did I could make the entire system work.


Thanks,
ADM

[straggler13]

Earlier today " Kundich " provided me with the answer, of which I am very grateful to him; for reading my plight as some others have done, and coming up with a solution. Seems I was saving the file ( EDU ) using the wrong encoding protocol. The correct one is ANSI.

I am very beholding to him for solving a problem which I would have done hours worth of re-doing the file - to no better result - and never have found the problem.

Kudos and thanks to him.

GLM (S13)

[Gigantus]

How did the problem come about?

I would have thought you open the txt with notepad and then simply click on 'Save' once you are done.

Guess you might have used Wordpad instead.

[straggler13]

I think I may have tooken a pasted word from my project notes, which I foolishly wrote in Wordpad ...cuz of the pretty colo(u)rs which my brain seems to pay more attention to when it's a'thinkin... and went ahead and pasted it into my file text; saving it, and there ya go! Woooaaa, messedupfile.