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Accessing a Datablock property [Answered]

by Colin Richardson · in Torque Game Builder · 08/06/2009 (9:09 am) · 7 replies

Hello,

I've been messing with this for some time and can't seem to get it to work.

Basically i have a datablock configured that stores names.
$characters = new ScriptObject() {
   class = characters;
   character1name = "Dr. Chandler";
   character2name = "Prof. P. Phogg";
   character3name = "";
....
};

Now i have a function which shows on a GUI window what's just happened.
function FirstAidEnabled(%this,%character) {
   txtChatBox.SetText(%character @ "'s First Aid skill is available." @ txtChatBox.getText());    
}

However %character is set to be "character1" as there are 3 of these options.

So what i thought then was i could do $characters.%character @ "name"; as in the console i can type echo($characters.character1name) and i get back the correct answer "Dr. Chandler".

But that throws a scripting error.

So how can i create a local variable that will return to me the actual name, or am i (i think) going about this completely the wrong way.

Many thanks
Colin


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Torque 3D Owner Novack
CyberianSoftware
#1
08/06/2009 (11:12 am)
Looks intricate... probably eval() would be helpful for what you want.

However, why not something cleaner, like having the character name on each character objects or datablocks?

Torque 3D Owner Colin Richardson
Monsters Games Studio
#2
08/06/2009 (11:36 am)
Hi Novack,

eval() is a new one on me, it's not in the documentation, however it doesn't seem to work either.

For example:

echo($characters.character1name);

Shows "Dr. Chandler" - correct

Either of these throw a parse error (when i try them in console)
echo(eval($characters.character1name));
echo(eval("$characters.character1name"));

There are many ways i can do this, but i think building a string that points to another string is a very useful thing.

The names btw are an example and are entered by the player, i think though i'll go for a behaviour for this.

Thanks

Torque 3D Owner Drethon
Default Studio Name
#3
08/06/2009 (12:22 pm)
Just a thought, you didn't want to make the list of character names an array?

Torque 3D Owner Colin Richardson
Monsters Games Studio
#4
08/06/2009 (12:45 pm)
Hi Drethon,

I did have a think about that, as the list of names will be pulled in from either an SQLite table or more likely a flat text file.

I've got this all working now via a new behaviour that i use to keep a track of the characters.

Thanks for the thought though, cheers!

Colin

Torque Owner Greg Beauchesne
#5
08/06/2009 (8:11 pm)
I wouldn't use eval() here. Two better options are A) TorqueScript's built-in array-like operator, or B) .getFieldValue() and .setFieldValue(). Both are going to do essentially the same thing (concatenate a string together to form a variable name), but they do it faster and without worry of bad values screwing up your script.

Example:
%obj = new ScriptObject() {
   valA = 1;
   valB = 2;
};

%var = "A";
echo(%obj.val[%var]);
echo(%obj.getFieldValue("val" @ %var));

%var = "B";
%obj.val[%var] = 5;
%obj.setFieldValue("val" @ %var, 5);

echo(%obj.valB);

Furthermore, you'll probably make your life easier by putting the index at the end of the field name rather than in the middle (i.e. "charactername1" rather than "character1name") -- otherwise you'll have to do more concatenation.

Torque 3D Owner Colin Richardson
Monsters Games Studio
#6
08/07/2009 (1:31 am)
Greg,

Now there's my answers, that's excellent of you.

I shall go away today and give those commands a good read up.

Thank you so much, i've already converted this into a behaviour, but i may switch back as i think a datablock is much easier for my head figuring it out.

Thanks again
Colin

Torque 3D Owner Novack
CyberianSoftware
#7
08/07/2009 (5:58 pm)
Now thats ingenious Greg!

Couldnt find the time to get back to this thread, glad you guys sorted it out, was kind of an interesting challenge :)