| Chapter 5: Text |

| 5.9. Making new substitutions

If we have some textual effect which needs to occur in several different messages, we might want to create a new text substitution for it. For instance:

> The Missile Base is a room. "[security notice]Seems to be a futuristic missile base." M's Office is east of the Missile Base. "[security notice]Admiral Sir M.- M.- glares up from his desk."

> To say security notice:
> say "This area is a Prohibited Place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act 1939. "

This is only the tip of the iceberg in how to define ways to do things using "To...", as we shall see. The definition makes "say the security notice" a new phrase known to Inform. A text substitution is exactly a phrase whose name begins with "say" (well - except for the "say" phrase itself), so the effect is that "[security notice]" is a new text substitution. Several of the examples in this chapter make use of this trick.

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| Example Fifty Ways to Leave Your Larva Using text substitution to make characters reply differently under the same circumstances.

We can use these substitutions to put together fairly complicated variations within a single piece of text: "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Larva" The Beekeeper's Palace is a room. Wasp is a woman in the palace. Drone is a man in the palace. Instead of kissing someone: say "'[denial], [insult]! [boast]!'"; In this context, [denial] is understood to refer to the denial property of the noun -- but we could spell it out with "denial of the noun" if we wanted to. A person has some text called denial. The denial of a person is usually "Stand back". The denial of Drone is "You forget yourself" A person has some text called insult. The insult of a person is usually "Grasshopper". The insult of Wasp is "Larva". A person has some text called boast. The boast of a person is usually "I am ferocious". The boast of Drone is "I have ferocious allies". And then it would be trivial to insert further rules using these responses: Instead of attacking someone: say "'Get away, [insult]!'" Test me with "kiss wasp / hit wasp / hit drone / kiss drone".

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| Example Fifty Times Fifty Ways Writing your own rules for how to carry out substitutions.

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