Inventory List

[artician]

Hey all,

I am making an inventory system for a game that will potentially have hundreds of items. I am not very fond of using the standard array object however, and if I could use a graphical spreadsheet or database to store inventory data for characters and the game, it would make development much easier.
I am asking the community what my options are for this. I know some objects can interface with excel spreadsheets or SQL DBs. If these objects are used, does that require the end user to have the associated software installed on their machine? (Such as in the case of using XLS files, they would have to have a copy of Office, no?)
Are there other objects or options I'm not aware of that would allow me to quickly enter and retrieve data in an organized fashion similar to these methods?
More than just the inventory items will be stored. For me, the ideal form for this would be a spreadsheet where each item would take up a row, and each column in that row would hold the items associated data such as name, number, description, cost, rarity, etc.

As always, any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

[Master_Maker]

Use string parser and INI++ the best for this.
I have one little inventory sistem using this objects.

[artician]

Thank you very much! I will research your suggestion.

[nivram]

Also maybe try the List Object. It can be saved and loaded. It can hold many items and each item in the list can be called on or deleted.

[artician]

Just thought I'd bump this thread to see if anyone could answer my initial question.

Thanks.

[DragonMC]

There is a Database object, and I don't think you have to have any database/SQL programs installed on your computer.

[Jaffob]

In one of my games, I have a list of all possible inventory items in an INI file, looking like this:

[Small Bomb]
Owned=1
Price=2000

[Big Bomb]
Owned=0
Price=5000

Using INI++, I loop through all these items. If their "Owned" value is 1, I add it to the list. If not, it remains excluded.

[Master_Maker]

I create little example for you...

[lembi2001]

I tried somthing similar once. you might be better off usingg something like this instead:

[0]
Name=Small Bomb
Owned=1
Cost=2500

[1]
Name=Big Bomb
Owned=2
Cost=5000

This way you can reference the group name using the loop index and it might make it easier to populate the list

[Jaffob]

It's easy enough my way just using INI++'s iteration features.