Category:Gamevar manipulation

Definition

gamevar <varname> <value> <flags>

var <varname> <value> <flags>

A gamevar is a variable that can be used to store numerical data which can then be referenced between actors, states and events. var is hereby semantically equivalent to gamevar.

The gamevar's flags define a bitmap that determines how the variable is treated by the game. For instance, a gamevar with flags of 0 is known as a global variable. A global variable exists once in the code, and any time a global variable is set, the new value is seen by all actors and events. A gamevar with flag bit 1 set is a per-player variable, which exists once for each player in the game. A gamevar with flag bit 2 set is a per-actor variable, which exists as many times in the code as there are sprites in the map. This means that each sprite has its own copy of a per-actor variable stored in memory. Note that a gamevar can only be defined as either global, per-player, or per-actor, but not as a combination thereof.

Gamevars are stored as signed 32-bit integers and therefore have a value range of -2.147.483.648 (-2³¹) to 2.147.483.647 (2³¹-1). Going above and below this range causes the value to overflow and underflow respectively.

Note that it is possible to omit the <value> and <flags> parameters entirely to define a global variable with an initial value of 0, with no other flags set. Example:

var TEMP1

It is also possible to chain flags separately at the end of the gamevar definition, instead of compiling them into a single value, as follows:

var TEMP2 10 1 4096    // This defines a per-player (1), read-only (4096) variable with initial value 10.

The following pages contain information on basic gamevar operations as well as conditional statements:

• gamevar operators
• ifvar conditions

Gamevar Flags

The following table shows all currently defined gamevar flags. The first 3 are the only ones needed under normal circumstances, but one can also assign higher flags to user-defined gamevars (given that you know what you are doing).