String references

In-game strings are collected in one or two files, dialog.tlk and (depending on user language) dialogF.tlk, and referred to by 4-byte integers (“strrefs”) in game structures.

In the database, strings are identified by “native strings”, which are arbitrary strings. (The native string is usually the game string itself in the mod's native language).

Namespacing

Since game strings are not used as references, namespacing rules do not apply for native strings. The only rule is that strings from different namespaces will never be merged.

Conversion to strref

The strref_dict table is the dictionary between native strings and strrefs.

The new_strings view is a list of all the native strings introduced by currently installed mods, together with their game flags (TODO explain why the flags).

As a part of the save operation, the compiler rebuilds strref_dict from the list of strings present in new_strings. This procedure happens in two steps:

1. entries absent from new_strings and entries with a too-high strref value are purged from the dictionary,
2. then entries form new_strings are inserted in strref_dict, each one successively using the lowest available strref.

For step 1: Let \(C\) be the number of constant strrefs (e.g. \(C=34000\) for a BG1EE install) and \(S\) be the number of entries in new_strings. Then the new resrefs need to be allocated in the interval \([0,C+S-1]\). This means that entries where \(\mathtt{strref} \geq C+S \) need to be purged from the strref_dict table.

The string_keys view is used for sequential generation of strrefs.