SRL Archive - Help and Support

When does using global variables become bad? I know that you should use local variables as much as you can. Say for X, Y, TPA, T2DPointArray and such. But for variables that you use only for settings that you can't use as local variables?

When does that become bad? Why is it bad? Is it only for standards and readability's sake or is there some other reason?


How does having something in a plugin help the speed? Is the speed increase really that much better? Say a script is 20k+ lines of code and there is no plausible way to shorten it. Would putting that script's functions & procedures in to a plugin help?
(Also I'm not sure that's how plugins actually work, but I'm just taking a wild guess.)


Thank you very much in advance to anyone that can answer my questions.

Global Variables can't help but be used when you add Stats to a script, so they're not that bad if those are the only reasons for them.

Really, to me, 10+ global variables are bad. However, that's just my opinion. When you define a global variable, there is memory allocated at runtime so you can use it when needed. It will not de-allocate until the script finishes. Unlike local variables, which will de-allocate when the procedure/function finishes.

Using simple Ints/Strings in global variables really doesn't affect the script too much, as long as you don't go overboard. Arrays allocate more memory than Ints/Strings.

I don't know much about plugins, so I can't answer that question :p

Alright, I understand that and I learned something new. Thank you very much.
But what about this?:

var
  rockColor, rockTolerance, rockPixelWidth, rockPixelHeight,
  rockMinPixel, rockSPSSurface: Integer;

  rockSPSAreas: TStringArray;

  rockHue, rockSaturation: Extended;

  rockAreaPoint, bankAreaPoint: TPoint;
  rockPathToBank, rockPathToRocks: TPointArray;

This would allow the creation of a global miner (Just a rough example). But it has to use those global variables to know what to mine. These global variables are set up on run time with a procedure that grabs what the user of the script desires to mine and sets the variables accordingly.

I've tried using a type for the information, but it would not 'Save'. Or maybe I was doing it wrong, lol. :p

A type would be better, how were you using it?

type
  rockInfo = record
    Color: Integer;
end;

procedure SetupMining;
var
  Info: rockInfo;
begin
  Info.Color := 1010110110;
  WriteLn('SetupMining - Color = ' + ToStr(Info.Color));
end;

procedure Setup;
var
  Info: rockInfo;
begin
  SetupMining;
  WriteLn('Setup - Color = ' + ToStr(Info.Color));
end;

Compiled successfully in 344 ms.
SetupMining - Color = 1010110111
Setup - Color = 0
Successfully executed.

It doesn't 'Save' it, you see. :x

Well duh, you're not setting your local var to the rockInfo Type that gets set in the SetupMining procedure. Try this ;)

program new;

type
  rockInfo = record
    Color: Integer;
end;

function SetupMining : rockInfo;
var
  Info: rockInfo;
begin
  Info.Color := 1010110110;
  WriteLn('SetupMining - Color = ' + ToStr(Info.Color));
  Result := Info;
end;

procedure Setup;
var
  Info: rockInfo;
begin
  Info := SetupMining;
  WriteLn('Setup - Color = ' + ToStr(Info.Color));
end;

begin
  ClearDebug;
  Setup;
end.

You're doing it wrong;

type
  TRock = record
    Name : String;
    Color, Tolerance : Integer;
  end;

function GetRockInfo(RockName : String): TRock;
begin
  with Result do
  begin
    Name := RockName;
    case lowercase(RockName) of
      'iron':
        begin
          Color := 123;
          Tolerance := 2;
        end;
    end;
  end;
end;

procedure FindRock(var X, Y : Integer; RockName : String);
var
  Rock : TRock;
begin
  Rock := GetRockInfo(RockName);
  // code here...
end;

Ooh, thank you both! I love learning new things. :o +rep to you both!

Now if I could just find out about the plugin thing.