NEW FEATURES WITH v.1.3.0!

• One of the biggest problems with this macro is with larger allegiances. It takes approximately an hour to scan 110 members, so you needed to be able to stay on for long periods of time. Most people get booted or lose connection for one reason or another in really long scans, then they'd have to start the scan over - a real hassle. With this version, assuming you don't change or move the files it generates, log back in and start the macro again - the macro will automatically resume where it left off!
• The macro will refuse to run if a completed scan sits in your output directory. This is a safety feature to keep you from accidentally overwriting completed scan data. Move your data before starting a new scan.

Download Allegiance Database Exporter

ACTool Macro for exporting basic allegiance tree data (no plugins required for your members).

Description of Macro

This macro scans your entire allegiance (or substructures, if you wish) and records data about each member in a simple comma delimited file. This file can then be easily imported into a database (or used as-is) for use on your clan's web site for displaying a current and accurate allegiance tree structure, among other things. I imagine it would also be great for monitoring chains as well. Since it takes 30 seconds to scan each vassal, you can determine how much time it will take to complete a full scan by multiplying 30 seconds by your total number of vassals.

It records the following information for allegiance members scanned, in comma delimited format.

Character Name, Title, Rank, Patron, Race

It also records a complete log of what you see in the AC text window as SCANLOG.TXT and end-run statistical information as STATISTICS.TXT in the same directory.

It provides audio cues for the start of the macro, detection of rank ghosts, and for the end of the macro.

I like it!

It is nice, but without a simple way to display the data (Not everyone runs IIE) its not terribly useful.

If there were a way to get Excel to gen a graphical display for instance, something simple, it would be enormously helpful.

Thanks for doing the coding, however.

The output is saved as a comma-separated-values format. Both MSWord and MSExel can import data in this format. It is also a pretty universal standard, so I imagine there's TONNES of other programs that can also import it. IMO the only way that it could possibly be done OTHER than this way (and still be pretty generically useful), would be to have used a dataset and saved it as XML.

-Triane

Rojohn: For those without web servers (specifically IIS), I understand what you're saying... you were addressing the display code, not the export code. Regarding the export code, Triane is right in that CSV is a universal standard (perhaps the simplest) but if I understand you right you want an alternate way to display the data in tree form.

I'm not an Excel guru, unfortunately. If someone else wants to make up some sort of macro or display function in Excel to display the data I'll gladly host it for download.

Oh, I finally got PHP going on a second web server so I'll be hosting a PHP version of the display code as soon as I can get it converted.

Aratak is right, I'm not really criticizing the way its exported. Its just without a way of easily displaying it, I was sorely disappointed when done.

Anyway, thanks for sharing it.

Rojon, I said this in my instructions and several times in the original thread; if you don't have a web server, I can host your tree for you; I just need to know your monarch name, title, race and rank, and you need to send me your data file and allegiance name. Hosting is free, no strings...

Aratak, would this work under Apache at all? I am not a monarch and I do not know much about IIS but I do know Apache (well 2.x Apache still blows nads) 1.x so I was wondering if it could be done. Maybe a mod_ or a compile time option.

I guess what I am asking is what makes this IIS only? If its done Frontpage style I can understand because it leaves Apache wide open to vulnerabilities (I was going to add FP to my Apache until I read all the nono's) that any Sys Admin would/should shy away from.

Looking forward to your reply.

gotcha, and yes there is an ASP module for Apache the last I looked.

I thank you and yes would be really easy to have perl pop out the csv or PHP.

Thanks again.

Hiya...
We're trying really hard to get this thing to work. We've had all kinds of errors that we've gotten through so far but the latest one we can't seem to figure out. The error is:

Error:Macro Line:ListDelete VassalsToScan, $sList
Caused Error:List Index Out Of Bounds (-1)
Module:Ade-V130.mac Line:696

It seems to be trying to list information for EMPTY.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thx,
J

There are bugs in the macro.

I suggest you contact the macro author at the email adress on the URL linked to on page #1 of this thread.

The error is occurring due to a failure to check the result of the preceding ListIndex command (ListIndex is failing to find a match on $Name, therefore returning -1, therefore causing ListDelete to bomb because you can't delete element -1).

I searched a level deeper, into Procedure StripNameTitle.

There's a logic/syntax bug in that procedure:
IF Temporary3 = High

Missing '$' on a constant, therefore $Name isn't getting set correctly in some cases, contributing to the ListIndex/ListDelete bug.

Hey there, I've been playing FFXI and the last few days and am running a little behind on my email - I will check this out for you and find out what's going on - I haven't run it since the latest version of AC Tool (or since last patch) - so I need to see if there are problems now.

Edit: looks like I had some coding issues that had never surfaced before - will check those out too!

Will get back to you!

Aratak
Frostfell, Asheron's Call
Monarch of Clan Wind
Email aratak@clanwind.com

Thanx much, Aratak! My son is playing FF XI too.

umm is the link broke?

Link is now http://www.clanwind.com/hold_ade/
Since they kind of hid it away and aratak@clanwind.com is no longer valid,
for posterity, I will post the file here with the error fix below incorporated

I changed,

IF Temporary3 = High // Check for High King/Queen title, the only two-word titles.
to
IF $Temporary3 = High // Check for High King/Queen title, the only two-word titles.

in these subroutines:
Procedure StripNameTitle
Procedure StripPatron
Procedure StripVassal

The last few days, I have been beating myself up trying to get this thing to work, and no luck so far.

I'm not the monarch, I'm an allegiance officer. I was so looking forward to making an allegiance tree for our group, and this script looks awesome, but just cannot get it to work.

I skipped the check on being monarch, and everything seems to go well, until it actually scans the first character. It then adds 2 instances of the first vassal, and only comes up as being a rank ghost. It continues to add the same list to the scan queue again, and again, flags it as being a rank ghost.

What exactly is a rank ghost anyhow? And does anyone know what may be causing this?

Thanks for any help provided on this.

same thing happens to me, even when i am the monarch

A "rank-ghost", is a player that no-longer exists in the AC database of players, but that has been left in the allegiance database.

Turbine did this when they started doing account-sweeps to delete old, inactive accounts from the server, but encountered resistance due to monarchies not wanting to have to go through complex re-arrangements due to lost-rank problems. This was especially a problem for "artifically" supported ranks (ie via cross-server, rank-trees).

Thus they decided they'd leave characters as "placeholders" for rank, but still delete the account, voila, "rank-ghosts".

-Triane

Ah, awesome, thank you Triane. Now the funny part is, I know for a fact that the script is not working, because the first one it encounters as a rank ghost, is a very active player, he's the monarch, hehe.

Looks like it may be time to bust out the programming skills again, and give a shot at it myself. I'm figuring the time it will take me to sort thru his code, and fix what's wrong, I could spend doing it myself from scratch, and learn more anyhow.

I know the macro used to work, because I ran it just a couple of months ago. Looks like a new charstats or an ACT companion problem. When the macro starts, it displays "Greetings _myname!" and adds several instances of each vassal to the scan list. It doesn't seem to see all the results returned by /allegiance info command ( like the vassal names)

I am using decal 2.6.1.2, I guess I should try 2.6.1.3