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Var.x, %var.y, %var.z

by Phillip O'Shea · in Torque Game Builder · 05/08/2008 (5:34 pm) · 3 replies

I am sure there are people out there that do not realise that these little helpers exist, but I appear to be having a problem with them in TGB 1.7.3. It is possible that they occur in other versions, but I am unable to reproduce this bug in a frequent setting.

There are two main problems.

1. You must have N number of words in the variable before ever using the .x .y .z suffixes. For example:

// Works perfectly
%myVar = 1 SPC 2 SPC 3;
echo ("MyVariable: " @ %myVar);
echo ("MyVariable X: " @ %myVar.x);
echo ("MyVariable Y: " @ %myVar.y);
echo ("MyVariable Z: " @ %myVar.z);

// Also works perfectly
%myVar.x = 3;
%myVar.y = 2;
%myVar.z = 1;
echo ("MyVariable: " @ %myVar);
echo ("MyVariable X: " @ %myVar.x);
echo ("MyVariable Y: " @ %myVar.y);
echo ("MyVariable Z: " @ %myVar.z);

// Does not work perfectly
%testVar.x = 1;
%testVar.y = 2;
%testVar.z = 3;
echo ("TestVariable: " @ %testVar);
echo ("TestVariable X: " @ %testVar.x);
echo ("TestVariable Y: " @ %testVar.y);
echo ("TestVariable Z: " @ %testVar.z);

2. This one I can't repeat all the time, but it might be something to do with passing it through functions? Anyway, sometimes you can echo X Y Z from a variable and it will not be the same as the values inside the whole variable. For example, you could echo %myVar.X and %myVar.Y and it will contain "1" and "2" and then echo %myVar and it could be "80 15".

The first one is easy to reproduce, but the second one only happens sometimes.

I am sure it isn't the correct place to ask, but can we please get this functionality in other Torque engines (TGE and TGEA)?
Phillip O'Shea's profile picture
Associate Phillip O'Shea
Violent Tulip

About the author

Head of Violent Tulip, a small independent software development company working in Wollongong, Australia. Go to http://www.violent-tulip.com/ to see our latest offerings.

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    Associate James Ford
    Sickhead Games
    #1
    05/09/2008 (12:22 pm)
    I was unaware that .X/.Y/.Z existed...

    So doing this:

    %var.Y = "15";

    Is the equivalent of:

    %var = setWord(%var,1,"15");

    Actually it would need to be more complex and perform a strcat if the LPARAM has a wordCount less than the one being accessed.

    Torque Owner BlueRaja
    #2
    07/28/2008 (8:45 am)
    I always thought that this was intended behaviour, that the outer variables needed to be initialized before any inner variables could be ie.
    function myFunction()
{
   %testVar = new SimObject();
   %testVar.x = 10;
   echo(%testVar);
   echo(%testVar.x);
}
    works perfectly. However, seeing this example has convinced me that this is indeed a bug since removing the first line of the function causes the program to crash when the code is run.

    Associate Phillip O'Shea
    Violent Tulip
    #3
    07/28/2008 (12:49 pm)
    BlueRaja, in my case, the variable in question most definitely is not an object, it is a string. In your case, you reference a dynamic field of an object.

    %testVar.X/.Y.Z is the equivalent of getWord(%testVar, 0/1/2) or setWord(%testVar, 0/1/2, "newValue").