Ranged Search Code
  by Justice (Kwon J. Ekstrom)
Updated: June 13, 2006


Special thanks to:
------------------------
Hypereye for the use of his server as a test site.
Samson for information regarding SmaugFUSS and dlsym.


Description:
------------------------
This code was originally written to handle the ranged search capabilities
of a from-scratch C++ codebase.  It was ported to SmaugFUSS for distribution
at "http://www.mudbytes.net/".

The purpose of this snippet is to reduce the code necessary for ranged
systems.  It does this by delegating an object to handle each room
individually while a separate algorithm determines what rooms are
searched and their order.

The code consists primarily of 3 parts:
    algorithms, search_frame, search_callback


Algorithms:
------------------------
The algorithms implement how the search is conducted.  Currently there are
3 algorithms implemented which should be sufficient for most ranged searches
for a room based mud.

The search_BFS class implements a "breadth first search" which works similar
to how track does in a standard SMAUG.

The search_LOS class implements a "line of sight search" which works by
expanding outward in any direction available from the start room.

The search_DIR class is similar to search_LOS but only expands in a given
direction.


Search Frame:
------------------------
The search_frame class stores the current state of the search.


Search Callback:
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The callback objects are where you would implement the purpose behind any
given search.  It defines only one abstract method.  It takes a search frame
as input and returns true if the target is "found" or false to keep searching.


Examples:
------------------------
Included with the source are 2 examples.  A basic scan function and a mini-map.