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Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Here's the deal, this is the piece of code that worked under ZMud but I don't really have no idea what to do with it under CMud.

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:11 pm

Try this

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Well, this one did compile the way it should, but.

How can I see the output? With old code, it was sufficent to do "#show @roomlists" and I could saw the list that was formed.

I'm betting its again something I haven't learned to do yet.

Just in case, thats the piece of code I use for testing atm.

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:27 am

Simply doing a #SHOW @roomlist() should do the trick. And function are awesome, experience the power Very Happy

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Ahh, using () after the name...

Well, anyway, I have a feeling that my logic may be wrong because even doing #show @func() doesn't show any result though it should.
Same math logic yield a result under ZMud.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

First based on your second post stating that the variable MyCurrentLevel holds "155", I can unequivocably say that your #IF will never be true. This means $return will always remain defined to "".

Second the logic used in the #IF seems overly processor intensive. You use of "%db(@testdb,%key)" makes no sense when %val would contain the same value, eliminate a fair bit of unnecessary code, and be much faster. I expect that the use of %int could also be eliminated as CMud is much smarter about this then zMud ever was.

Finally, the #LOOPDB will run through the entire variable leaving $return set to the last %key that matched the conditions in the #IF. It would be faster to use a #BREAK to end the loop when the first matching condition is found. This command is a rather recent addition to CMud, and the change in behavior is something you might consider.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Sorry, it was my bad not to give new MyCurrentLevel value with new code paste. Its 201. So unless I'm completely off, it should work.
Sorry again for the confusion.

I have to think about other stuff you brought up and get back to you, though.

Prog

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Well, I removed the %ints but there's still nothing.

I won't start to think about speed until I get it to work, but #break idea seems a very nice one indeed.

However, I don't understand what you mean by your %val talk. Testdb holds two values. Both of them are used for evaluating if keys are OK to use or not.

If First value of a given key is 200 and teststages minus myteststage gives the value of 0 (%item(@teststages, @mystage), where mystage is 1 which is first item in teststages list). Ergo, 200 is < than 201. Second value of a given key is 201, teststages minus myteststage also gives 0 so it remains to 201 (just as 200 did). And 201 is >= than 201.

Seriously, maybe I'm missing something here, but this code has always worked 100% under ZMud however badly it had the need to be tailored before hand with %int etc for ZMud to understand.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Well, I figured I'll just write a separate post otherwise one would become huge with all the edits.

I think I may have figured it out but I'm still not too sure. As Vji mentioned, $return captures the last match. That it does, but its not really what I need. At the risk of sounding like an old record - back in ZMud, this code was able to come up with a string list in case there were more than one match. Maybe thats where #break comes in and parses the eventual list, I don't know. Haven't looked into #break yet.

However, the code below works the way it should (the fact that only one match is returned excluded, but thats not the fault of the code).

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:49 am

I also didn't get that this was suppose to return multiple values but should be easy enough to correct.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Excellent! Now that you put that into code, I realize what Vji was saying. Interesting that I didn't understand nor followed that logic when this script was originally written for ZMud.

I'm going to try this snipplet tomorrow as I don't really have much time other than to reply at this point. However, with the latest code I've given out here, I did try additem. However I tried %additem if that means anything. $return=%additem(%key,$return), and this one didn't work.

Anyway, I'm going to get back to you tomorrow with outcome of the new code suggestion, much appreciated.

Prog

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

I'm very happy to announce that it worked! Cool

Weird, that %additem didn't work, though. But anyway, now I can get complete list of matches and thats how it was originally designed.

I suppose at this point I need to explain a little what I was actually trying to do as there has already been quite a bit of confusion and things
left unsaid.

In a nutshell, this function goes through a huge db that contains keys as zone names and values which contain all sorts of information about the given zone (and values are in a from of value1|value2|value3 etc). If conditions are met considering my current level, a list is formed which contains matching keys (as in zones) in relation to my current level.

Then I can go on and do things like %item(%item(@func(),2),2) and so on.

I'm not very good at explaining things to be completely honest but maybe this will shine at least some light why I needed the #loopdb output be firm complete match not only first or last.

Thanks again for all the help, Tech and Vji!

Prog

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Pretty much a follow-up because same sort of problem and didn't see much point in starting a new thread.

Under ZMud, I have this:

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:07 pm

Yes, it is a function so you should be creating as function.

If you were doing it from a command line you'd use #VARFUNC to keep the zMUD version or better yet, use #FUNCTION to create a proper function.

As for what it's returning you're actually returning the result of the %item so you could do something like.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

I'm unsure if its expected behavior or not but when I enter the #varfunc above into command line and then do #show @changekey(),

I get ERROR: Argument still in stack, followed by current value of @func() being spammed directly into screen until MUD disconnects me.

The second version, using function directly doesn't seem to return any result at all when tried with #show @changekey().

I'm trying to take a crack at how to re-write the logic to make more sense, though.

Thanks for suggestions.

EDIT: Let it be said, that the original ZMud code is supposed to be a "looping" one, meaning if @func() has two values - Area 1 and Area 2, then first time I'd use @changekey() I'd get Area 1, second time Area 2 and third time Area 1 again.

Prog

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Man, I really start to love functions Cool

However, even though I think I may have figured out the logic how all this would work under new function, I still can't get it correctly.

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:03 am

Ok... I've figured out why you're always getting the same result. In your if statement you reference the @changeKey, base on what you've given so far it's not an active variable so CMUD (I'm guessing) treats as a literal that always evaluates and thus you always exit the loop early.

Now if it's a reference to the changeKey fuction, then you've got another problem, infinite loop. Can you post more of the original zMUD code so we can get a better understanding of what the changeKey function is supposed to do. Right now we're trying build something (could be a clock or car) by just reconstructing small pieces and that can make it difficult to do the reconstruction properly.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Well, to be completely honest, there's really nothing additional to give nor have I hold anything important back.

First I had to solve the old Roomlists function's problem, which I did

Old code:

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:34 pm

Ok... I just ran the original code snippet in zMUD and you had an infinite loop there too... if you look at the script debugger while it's executing you'll see that. Maybe it's because of the test data or how you're using it you never noticed it before, but it's definitely there. I guess it's a credit to zMUD that it didn't bring the system to a halt.

With that said let's re-write for CMUD. We now know it's now our understanding that was flawed, but the code.

Now we need to know a few things... can the @roomlists() function return a string list greater than 2? If so, how do you know which entry from the list you want? Does it matter if you always take the first one? What do you do with the result of @ChangeKey()?

It looks like the function originally tried to check if you were getting the last member of the list, return to the first member of the list. So I'm guessing what it really want's to do is process the next member of the list each time it's called, then back to the first one. If that's not the functionality you want let me know. The original logic is really flawed, so you'll need to tell me how you want it to work today, and not how it worked before.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Original code ran perfectly fine in ZMud, I know what I'm talking as all this is ultimately part of a seriously huge code that I had working for little over a year.
When I started, I had Arminas to help me out as I knew close to nothing about Zscripting, but by now I've honestly forgotten which pieces of subcode belong
to his imagination and which to mine.

In my last message, I tried to explain what the pieces of code are doing. I really don't know any better way to explain, other send you the whole thing which
under CMud is little over 2,5K lines of code.

Sorry if I come across harsh and I most likely do and apologize in advance, but as I got the first part (basically the code that started this thread) working perfectly
fine, I figured this one shouldn't be that hard either. At least I thought so. Maybe I'm just unable to explain properly.

That being said.

Yes, @roomlists() function can return a string list thats item count is infinite, basically. There's no restriction there.

Yes, I always want the first entry. When the time comes and I don't want it anymore, Changekey is designed to take next entry which isn't the current one used.

As I said in my last post, result of @changekey() is used for extracting data from zonedb. In a nutshell, zonedb consists of keys as zones and values as different
sort of data (i.e: minimum_zone_level|maximum_zone_level|mob_list|repop_message - Obviously, this sort of huge value list has some values as stand alone string
lists or db records: such as mob_list for example).

Once @changekey() obtains a value, I can do stuff like %item(%db(@zonedb,@changekey()), 2) and so on to form fresh data containers for new zone.

My belief is that original code checked if %ismember(@changekey(),@roomlists()) is a valid one, that means it would return 1. If it is one and equals with
%numitems(@roomlists()), it would take first entry, otherwise it would take %eval(%ismember(@changekey(),@roomlists()))+1.

At least thats how I used to explain it to myself.

I can't dispute that the original *logic* isn't flawed. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. That really isn't the point to be honest. The point is that I should be able to
re-write this code under new set of rules to make it work. If in process I'd make the logic more clearer, well... Even better :)

Lastly I want to say that I really appreciate your effort to crack this, Tech. But maybe there's some gap of understand I can't fill and therefore must
continue alone although I'm unsure if I can because most of the new stuff in CMud I'd really like to use is still pretty much beyond my comprehension.

Thanks again.

Prog

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Why in the world would you need a function to increment through items of lists, when that is what adding 1 to a local variable and using it as the key for %item does? A generic function that works with any list instead of a specific one...Oh, wait that is %push, %pop, %ismember, %item, %delitem, %replaceitem, %additem. To do the increment #FORALL @list {some code;#IF (something) {#BREAK}; some more forall code}

I think Tech is right, without seeing the code that calls these functions we really can't make sense of the functions.

Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:08 am

Ok Prognoi,

This should do what you want.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

Before I actually reply, I feel the need to clear the air here. My ultimate motive wasn't in fact pressing on using old code however bad it was. Eventually I just
wanted to get the point of the code across and come up with something more up-to-date in process. Its true though that some sort of internal processes or
whatever CMud does go way beyond my head and therefore I just couldn't understand why the old code wouldn't work. In fact I still don't to be honest.

However, I have nothing against stricter parsing environment. In fact, when I first saw that this code acts weird under CMud (when I tried to enter it via cmd line and
got infinite loop for example), I knew that ultimately it had to be re-written. Seeing now that it can be, while obtaining the same logic principle and amids the
more strict rules still seems to have a lot more understandable logic, pleases me a great deal.

So yeah, I just tried to new code and it works flawlessly, I owe you one, Tech. Ironically I still have beat myself some because looking at the code I may have been
close but missed several key elements to make it work the way it should.

I did, however, not make oldKey default. There's no real need for that in my code and while not doing it gains a speed perspective, well, even more so.
Basically @roomlists() value change over time while I advance in levels so there's no real need at all to keep some random value as default, @changekey() gains
its value in time just like everything else.

Anyway, again great deal of thanks, really appreciated.

Prog