[ZScript/ACS] Call script on map with map name?

[Gutawer]

I'm creating a system which will use ACS as a convenient map scripting frontend to a backend written in ZScript, and one of the things the system needs to be able to do is call these scripts on any map. It would be much nicer in terms of the outward facing API to use a map lump's name rather than its LevelNum, so I was just wondering if this were possible. It would alleviate the need to define level nums in MAPINFO and remember them for calling scripts correctly, so this is something I'd like to know how to do.

[gramps]

Was just looking for this myself... try some of the fields of global "levels," it's a struct of type "LevelLocals" (defined in gzdoom.pk3/zscript/base.txt).

[Nash]

The problem here is that the first parameter for ACS_NamedExecute and friends takes in an int, which is the LevelNum value of a map. What Gutawer is asking if it's somehow possible to use map lump name instead. I think new functions would have to be made because the current ones expect int as the first parameter.

The use case here is that LevelNums are cumbersome to work with, requiring management because one would have to remember which LevelNum is for which map - doesn't make sense for projects that completely bypass LevelNum because the game isn't even in a linear format (think something along the lines of Strife).

Moreover, the same reason why one wouldn't want to use LevelNums is the same reason why one wouldn't want to use script numbers in ACS and would rather use named scripts. It's just so much more user-friendly.

[gramps]

Hmm, couldn't you write a little function to get level number by name? Iterate all levels until levelname matches, then return levelnum or a good "do nothing" value if possible when nothing matches.

Then do something like ACS_NamedExecute(getLevelNum("somewhere"), ...)

Or does ACS_ExecuteAlways need to be called from ACS in this scenario, not zscript? Not sure about info passing between zscript and ACS, haven't tried that yet.

[stan423321]

You can call ACS_ExecuteWhatever from ZScript, otherwise porting existing DECORATE code would be extremely painful.

The "iterate levelnums" setup is sounds like it would probably result in player seeing the initial map transitions, which is extremely ugly.

If you don't care about object activator, or it's always a player pawn, here's what I would try doing in ZScript. Give player pawn an unselectable inventory item containing script activation details. Then write an EventHandler that checks current map's lump name, then checks through player pawn inventories for applicable items, and if the name matches, fires the script and removes the item. If the rest of the code is in ACS, you should be able to utilize ScriptCall to pipe it to the ZScript part.

[Gutawer]

I've decided to just not use ACS at all for this, but yes, that was going to be what I did, minus use of inventory items to do it.

[gramps]

@stan423321 oops, you're right, I was thinking it was "levels" but it's just the current "level."

What would really help here is if zscript had access to the wad/pk3 filesystem.

...in fact I just found this, gonna try it out now.

[gramps]

Just in case anyone else come across this, here's an extremely hacky (but apparently working) method.

Code: Select all

const MF_MAX_LUMPS = 2000;

class MapFinder {
	Array<int> indices;
	
	static MapFinder create() {
		let instance = new("MapFinder");
		instance.init();
		return instance;
	}
	
	void init() {
		indices.clear();
		for (int i = 1; i < MF_MAX_LUMPS; i++) {
			if (wads.readLump(i).length() == 1) {
				indices.push(i);
			}
		}
	}
	
	int find(string lumpName) {
		let index = wads.findLump(lumpName);
		if (index < 0) return -1;
		let len = indices.size();
		
		for (int i = 1; i < len; i++) {
			if (indices[i] == index) {
				return i + 1;
			}
		}
		return -1;
	}
}

Not quite sure how to properly deal with initialization; haven't found anything like constructors or default values. A static "create" function seems to work, though.

The array seems sketchy to me though, can anyone tell me whether that's properly initialized?