Gave a more informative error message when reading non-UTF-8 batchfiles containing international symbols (issue97) as well as refactored the processors a bit further. Fixed some minor typographic details in some other commands.

game/gamesrc/commands/default/batchprocess.py

@@ -29,8 +29,24 @@ from src.commands.cmdset import CmdSet
 
 
 HEADER_WIDTH = 70
+UTF8_ERROR = \
+"""
+ {rDecode error in '%s'.{n
+
+ This file contains non-ascii character(s). This is common if you
+ wrote some input in a language that has more letters and special
+ symbols than English; such as accents or umlauts.  This is usually
+ fine and fully supported! But for Evennia to know how to decode such
+ characters in a universal way, the batchfile must be saved with the
+ international 'UTF-8' encoding. This file is not.
+ 
+ Please re-save the batchfile with the UTF-8 encoding (refer to the
+ documentation of your text editor on how to do this, or switch to a 
+ better featured one) and try again. 
+
+ The (first) error was found with a character on line %s in the file.
+"""
 
-#global defines for storage
 
 #------------------------------------------------------------
 # Helper functions
@@ -192,9 +208,15 @@ class CmdBatchCommands(MuxCommand):
             return    
         python_path = self.args
 
-        #parse indata file
-        
-        commands = BATCHCMD.parse_file(python_path)
+        #parse indata file        
+
+        try:
+            commands = BATCHCMD.parse_file(python_path)
+        except UnicodeDecodeError, err:
+            lnum = err.linenum
+            caller.msg(UTF8_ERROR % (python_path, lnum))
+            return 
+
         if not commands:
             string = "'%s' not found.\nYou have to supply the python path "
             string += "of the file relative to \nyour batch-file directory (%s)."
@@ -271,7 +293,13 @@ class CmdBatchCode(MuxCommand):
         python_path = self.args
 
         #parse indata file
-        codes = BATCHCODE.parse_file(python_path)
+        try:
+            codes = BATCHCODE.parse_file(python_path)
+        except UnicodeDecodeError, err:
+            lnum = err.linenum
+            caller.msg(UTF8_ERROR % (python_path, lnum))
+            return 
+
         if not codes:
             string = "'%s' not found.\nYou have to supply the python path "
             string += "of the file relative to \nyour batch-file directory (%s)."

game/gamesrc/commands/default/general.py

@@ -491,11 +491,11 @@ class CmdSay(MuxCommand):
         speech = caller.location.at_say(caller, speech)
 
         # Feedback for the object doing the talking.
-        caller.msg("You say, '%s'" % speech)
+        caller.msg('You say, "%s{n"' % speech)
         
         # Build the string to emit to neighbors.
-        emit_string = "{c%s{n says, '%s'" % (caller.name, 
-                                             speech)
+        emit_string = '{c%s{n says, "%s{n"' % (caller.name, 
+                                               speech)
         caller.location.msg_contents(emit_string, 
                                          exclude=caller)
 

game/gamesrc/commands/default/objmanip.py

@@ -205,7 +205,6 @@ class CmdSetObjAlias(MuxCommand):
         obj.aliases = aliases 
         caller.msg("Aliases for '%s' are now set to %s." % (obj.name, aliases))
 
-
 class CmdName(ObjManipCommand):
     """
     cname - change the name and/or aliases of an object

game/gamesrc/world/examples/batch_cmds.ev

@@ -48,9 +48,9 @@ know you want to!
 # Now let's place the button where it belongs (let's say limbo #2 is 
 # the evil lair in our example)
 
-@teleport #2
+teleport #2
 
 #... and drop it (remember, this comment ends input to @teleport, so don't
 #forget it!) The very last command in the file need not be ended with #.
 
-drop button
+drop button