JASS: Moving From GUI to Jass, the Start

[chango]

Memory leaks...

Hi,

This is a very complete tutorial, and easy to read even for the people who dont know programming at all.

I'm really new to we (less than a week ;D) but i have a lot of years in programming, and i want to know about how jass manage the memory leak problem.

So the question is if i call a function like this:

GetRectCenter(GetEntireMapRect())

and save it in a local point variable, when the trigger is over and the variable disappear the memory is released or not ?

And for my first proyect i m doing a very very very simple Hero arena, but i don't know if it's better to do every trigger with JASS or should i make all the things in GUI untill i found something that is not posible to do with it and then do that in JASS?.

Thank's.

 

[Evero]

THANK YOU !

Finally a neat tutorial that actually explains everything so detailed that those of us who didn't speak the english language when we used diapers can understand.

Thank you

 

[The Helper]

5 Star Bump

5 Star Bump!

 

[Frizz.Meister]

As someone who knows loads of GUI but no jass at all I thank you for enlightneing me. Im only up to math and integer section but, this is the only tutorial i have found that makes sense. Awesome job you know exactly how to explain things!

 

[12sea21]

THIS WAS THE BEST TUT EVER MAN!!!!!!!!!! i learnt jass just off that!!!!!!! w00t!!!!!!!!! im gonna look at other tuts though..

 

[tooltiperror]

I could not get through Vexorian's tutorial because it was complicated, but this was easy to follow and excellent!

+ Reputation!

Just a suggestion:
I think you should add how to make events into your Tutorial.

Everyone needs to know that.

I also don't understand taking and returning.

Like, does it actually take it from the map, and replace it with a variable?

 

[Lyerae]

// takes:
function TakeAnInteger takes integer i returns nothing
     call BJDebugMsg(I2S(i)
endfunction
function Init takes nothing returns nothing
     call TakeAnInteger(7) // this will call our shiny function above this one, and display 7
     call TakeAnInteger(638) // same thing, but displays 638
endfunction

// returns:

function Return takes nothing returns string
     return "Hello World!"
endfunction
function Init takes nothing returns nothing
     call BJDebugMsg(Return()) // displays "Hello World!", without quotes.
endfunction

More or less, that's it.

 

[tooltiperror]

But I don't understand what it means.

Like if it takes an integer, does it subtract it or something?

 

[BRUTAL]

Do you know what parameters are?
When a function 'takes' something that's pretty much it.

 

[Avaleirra]

Great tutorial! I only have one question: will newgen WE have the JASS thing that let's you learn the actions/conditions?

And I'm a tiny bit confused on how JASS triggers trigger. I know it has something to do with the parameter though...

 

[Nestharus]

Great tutorial! I only have one question: will newgen WE have the JASS thing that let's you learn the actions/conditions?

It has a function that includes all of the natives so you can learn the API for unit events/retrieval, player events/retrieval, and etc.

As for conditions/actions on triggers, if you'd like to learn more about them chapter 22 from my apparently horrid guide.

http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=137090

It also includes the answer to your next question, which I put here for your convenience.

Learning the API on all the handles can be tough. There are many natives and there aren't many guides out there that go over a lot of them in-depth. For example, unit groups (a tough one), player API (very extensive), game API, etc..

There's a lot to learn, but if you are focused enough you can get through it.

And I'm a tiny bit confused on how JASS triggers trigger. I know it has something to do with the parameter though...

Section from my lousy guide-
Register Events to Triggers

Events are in-game events that the trigger responds to. For example, you might make a trigger fire when a unit dies on the map. When using triggers, you can get the triggering handles involved as well, for example, you can retrieve the unit that caused the trigger to fire.

Trigger events are stored in an event handle. Once an event is registered on a trigger, it can never be removed, meaning that you have to destroy the trigger if you want to get rid of the event. Events also take up memory.

When adding an event to a trigger, the event handle is always returned. The only use for this is that you could set up a trigger's events in global declaration

trigger t = CreateTrigger()
event e = TriggerRegisterEvent(t, event) //not an actual native

The event id that fired the trigger can be retrieved with [ljass]GetTriggerEventId[/ljass]
[ljass]constant native GetTriggerEventId takes nothing returns eventid[/ljass]

From here, you can use the event id to determine what type of event the trigger fired off of. The event id that is returned is an actual event id, for example the event id for unit even death. The event id can be converted into an event and from there used to registered events of the same type of w/e. The problem is that the actual event type is unknown, so you'd really have to know what to convert the event to.

Conversion Methods Are

constant native ConvertDialogEvent takes integer i returns dialogevent
constant native ConvertGameEvent takes integer i returns gameevent
constant native ConvertPlayerEvent takes integer i returns playerevent
constant native ConvertPlayerUnitEvent takes integer i returns playerunitevent
constant native ConvertUnitEvent takes integer i returns unitevent
constant native ConvertWidgetEvent takes integer i returns widgetevent

Useful Trigger Event utility http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showpost.php?p=1029299&postcount=1

To further elaborate, I'll take a section from chapter 23 of my crap guide to be used as an example.

Players and Triggers

Player events can be registered on triggers with [ljass]TriggerReigsterPlayerEvent[/ljass]
[ljass]native TriggerRegisterPlayerEvent (trigger whichTrigger, player whichPlayer, playerevent whichPlayerEvent) returns event[/ljass]

The player events are-

EVENT_PLAYER_ALLIANCE_CHANGED
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_DOWN_DOWN //down arrow pressed
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_DOWN_UP //down arrow released
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_LEFT_DOWN
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_LEFT_UP
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_RIGHT_DOWN
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_RIGHT_UP
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_UP_DOWN
EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_UP_UP
EVENT_PLAYER_CHAT
EVENT_PLAYER_DEFEAT
//SetPlayerState
//PLAYER_STATE_GAME_RESULT
//PLAYER_GAME_RESULT_DEFEAT 
EVENT_PLAYER_END_CINEMATIC //escape key event
EVENT_PLAYER_LEAVE
EVENT_PLAYER_STATE_LIMIT
//used on food limit?
EVENT_PLAYER_VICTORY
//SetPlayerState
//PLAYER_STATE_GAME_RESULT
//PLAYER_GAME_RESULT_VICTORY

Event response natives include-
[ljass]constant native GetEventPlayerState takes nothing returns playerstate[/ljass]

In essence, if you were to do this-

local trigger  t = CreateTrigger()
call TriggerRegisterPlayerEvent (t, Player(0), EVENT_PLAYER_ARROW_DOWN_DOWN)

Trigger t would fire whenever Player 0 pressed the down arrow key.


I know I explained everything horribly as I always do, but hopefully I helped you a little -.-.

 

[Avaleirra]

Your guide isn't lousy or bad. It's just way more complicated than this one .

 

[Nestharus]

Your guide isn't lousy or bad. It's just way more complicated than this one .

Was I helpful with your questions though? You understand triggers now? ^_^

 

[Avaleirra]

I sortof understand. I might need a few simple example triggers that might be used in a game... But we should use PM's instead so this thread doesn't get messy .

 

[Oreo_clan]

31 pages eh...? Dang! There should be a printed version of this then... Would make things a bit easier on the eyes... And just holding it would be amusing...

Also, I was quite surprised when you said English wasn't your native language. Your English is VERY impressive. It's very clean and easy to read! But then again, I'm only a college student and I only read part one so far... (err... Maybe not even that... The introduction at least.)

I look forward to the day I finish the whole thing.

 

[jig7c]

i have a question

function multiply takes integer a, integer b returns integer
    local integer counter = 1
    local integer ConstantA = a  // if integer a is a parameter name, why is it being set here?
    loop
        exitwhen counter > b
        set a = a + constantA
        set counter = counter + 1
    endloop
    return a
endfunction

in your tut, where you provide the above example, i don't understand how it suppose to multiply, but more importantly, if above script is good, why is the bottom script illegal!

in the above script; integer a is in the parameter above and then used in a function below
the bottom script is illegal because parameter name "p" is in the user-defined function and also in the function list...

i thought you couldn't name function variables and parameter names the same!!!!

function wrong takes play p returns nothing
    local unit p // You have parameter and local with the same name!
    local integer s
    local real s // 2 variables with the same name!
endfunction

 

[Lehona]

Note: We can set values to globals easily the same way

udg_global_name = value

Shouldn't this be "set udg_global_name = value"?

Edit: @jig7c: 'a' is used to do some math in the (user-) function, but it's not declared (declared = "created") there, just used. If you aren't allowed to use parameters in the function, they'd pretty useless.

 

[sephiroth123]

It helps!

It greatly helped me! Now I understand the significance of JASS over GUI. Thanks for your tutorial!:thup:

 

[viktorpapa]

4.3.4 Other Loops

And then we have other loops, in the exitwhen we can put any condition that will be checked every loop run, what means you can put whatever condition you wish and the loop will run until that condition is met. You can tell the loop to run until some player have some amount of some resource, or make the loop run until a unit dies… Whatever, you can put it all there.

Ive never tried jass but according to my coding knowledge (c#,java,pascal) and as i know how computers and processors work
i really doubt you can do those things, or actually you can, but it would end up in an infinite loop.

Edit: Ok, I explain a bit more precisely: The program cant calculate any other values and variables while its running the loop so those variables wont ever change which could stop the loop, see? tbh i assume warcraft doesnt support multitasking and multi-core processors, but even if it would, it would be slow like the frozen hell and probably cause nasty errors like various overflows.