Store reference to object in variable

[Traxus]

Alright, well, we've batted this idea around in enough threads to warrant its own. This seems like a hefty request but it would be absolutely huge in helping us abstract and refactor our code.

In short, we need to be able to do this:

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decl o = getobject();

Let me elaborate.

This is not the best example, as this implementation could be simplified by using switches, but bear with me, the principals are here.

Lets say I make an array of pads. I want to use those pads as select buttons. Hitting a pad will cause it to light up, as well as turn off whichever other pad was currently lit.

So we have our object 'Pads', and inside 'Pads' we make an expression, 'selected=0' for tracking which pad was last pressed, by which we can setup a script elsewhere in the template that will fire when 'selected' is changed.

We also make a script to control which pad is lit, 'setGlow(p)' within 'Pads' that fires manually:

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decl i;
for (i=0;i<=sizeof(x);i++) {
		if (i == p) {
				light[i] = 0.325;
		} else {
				light[i] = 0;
		}
}

Now we need another function, 'setSelected()' which will execute on any change of x. This will, as the name implies set which pad is selected, both by changing the 'selected' variable and lighting up that pad:

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decl i;
for (i=0;i<=sizeof(x);i++) {
		if (x[i] == 1) {
				selected = i;
				setGlow(i);
		}
}

So, simple enough. But what if I have this 50 or some times in my template, why should that be necessarily?


Why can't 'setGlow(p)' become a global script with 2 paramaters, 'setGlow(p,o)' ?

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decl i;
for (i=0;i<=sizeof(o.x);i++) {
		if (i == p) {
				o.light[i] = 0.325;
		} else {
				o.light[i] = 0;
		}
}

And then simply change 'setSelected()' to pass the current object into the global script?:

Code: Select all

decl i;
decl o = getobject()
for (i=0;i<=sizeof(x);i++) {
		if (x[i] == 1) {
				selected = i;
				setGlow(i,o);
		}
}

I understand this example is trivial and could possibly be worked out another way, but imagine the resources we could save by doing that! Forget(maybe) having to increase the max template size at the loss of FPS, let us code like adults!

[dBlicious]

It's true, you can't do this:

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decl obj = SomeObject;
obj.light = val;

but you can do this:

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decl obj = SomeObject;
setexpression(obj, 'light', val);

The same also applies for attributes. I attached a simple template that doesn't do exactly what you describe, just essential stuff.

Also, maybe you know this, but you often don't need to iterate through an array to pull out the useful information. Often you can pass the array as-is, or use firstof() and nonnull() to get at the useful bits. For the second set of pads in the attached template, I just assigned light to x--no function necessary. I know this wasn't what you were asking, so apologies if I you know this stuff. Just trying to help.

-A

[Traxus]

ooooooooh

I knew there had to be some way to do this

[Macciza]

Hi
Thought I posted this earlier but it seems I didn't . . .
Slightly different approach and a couple of possible version taking different args,
Slightly wordier but with some other programming options made possible
Have a look
MM

ObjRef.jzml

(19.59KiB)Downloaded 134 times

[Traxus]

ah, findobject()

how did i forget that? I must have skimmed over it in the function reference list a dozen times.

Also looking forward to getting home and verifying whether set expression works for custom expressions...