Sounds like you're trying to make an interpreted language, right?
You can use the following commands
OPEN TO READ file_id, file_name
READ STRING file_id, string
CLOSE FILE file_id
to read the lines of the file. However as you'll need to have jump commands, you may want to read all the lines in at the start of the program in to a string array. That way you will be able to easily jump back to earlier lines.
As for identifying commands, string comparison in DBP is easy. You can even use it with the select case structure. Thus to simply look for commands, you could use something like this:
select sAllLines(nCurrentLine)
case "draw sprite"
drawSprite()
endcase
case "end"
end
endcase
endselect
Things may get a bit more complex as you'll need to handle multiple things per line. To deal with this, you will want to look in to the string manipulation functions such as:
left$ ( string, value )
right$ ( string, value )
mid$ ( string, value )
You will also want to find some kind of in string command to find spaces and so on. I think IanM's plugin has some good functions in this area but unfortunately, that's the one part of his plugin I can't use because it clashes with another plugin I have.
Anyhow I hope this helps and good luck with this.
