read jtitor in paper results in "programming error" (see image)

[pahp]

A student got this error in lab:

Honestly, read jtitor in paper is a bizarre thing to enter, but I don't know why it caused an error.

[spacehobo]

OK, so the text it tries to display is MSG_CONSULT_NOTHING_INTERESTING, which is the default response from ConsultSub because that's the function called by read topic 'in' noun'.

I think the problem here is that paper is an actual object, but not one that was present. So it found the thing in the dictionary, perhaps, but couldn't populate noun with an object reference. So (the) noun became "the nothing", but not before some part of the the function tried to test it for some attribute.

If I'm correct about all of this, then there's a good chance that this is a bug in PunyInform.

[spacehobo]

I think before I file this, I should construct a minimal test game that demonstrates the problem more clearly.