It's not a lack of C concepts, but the design of ROM. ROM has 1 main loop. It processes all input and output in that one loop. If you tore up that code, functionized it, you could theoretically call it whenever you wanted to check for player input or process player output. (acutally player output is easy, you can call process_output() at any time) But processing input wouldn't be grand.
I wouldn't go that route, because it's a hack at that point. Unless you overhauled it, but there's not much gain in my opinion, others may differ. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Valnir > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 10:48 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Pausing a Loop. > > It does help, and it's a very interesting concept. I am not > sure it's 100% what I'm after though. > > What I am really after is the C equivalent of the VB DoEvents > function. I want it to stay in the same process, pause the > loop, take care of any requests, output, etc, and then > continue the loop, pause, so on and so forth. > > (I did try the fork, and it seems to work, but it doesn't do > exactly what I > want) > > - Valnir > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jason Gauthier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Valnir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 10:07 AM > Subject: RE: Pausing a Loop. > > > Sure. > > If you've had no experience with threads then let's not go that route > for now. Threads are great, but I wouldn't want to stick you in that > mess blind. > > fork() is easy, but a little more "expensive" than threads. Overall, I > think a basic fork() should do the job. > > fork() is a C function that creates a copy of your process, > and executes > the specified code in copy. > It returns a value you can use to identify the child from the parent. > > If you have unix handy "man fork". > > This is an example > > process_players > { > int f; > > f = fork(); > > /* something bad happened */ > if (f==-1) { > // fork failed, tell your command issuer > return; > } > > if (!f) { > // Everything here is where you want to put your time > consuming code > } > } > > > Couple things to note. > The command issuer will not be waiting for the command to > finish either. > (You could force a wait if you want) > Thus, if the command issuer executes this command in rapid > succession it > will hurt your box. > > Secondly, if you change any variables, they will be reflected in the > parent when the child exits. > > Hope that helps. > > Jason > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Valnir > > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:55 AM > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: Pausing a Loop. > > > > Ok... I have to say this is something I have never tried. A > > little help or direction?? > > > > - Valnir > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Jason Gauthier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Valnir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Cc: <[email protected]> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:53 AM > > Subject: RE: Pausing a Loop. > > > > > > It was perfectly clear. There is no function to tell the mud to "go > > about your business". > > > > You need to either thread the entire function, or call > fork() and run > > this as a child process. > > > > Jason > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > > Behalf Of Valnir > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:50 AM > > > To: [email protected] > > > Subject: Re: Pausing a Loop. > > > > > > Maybe it would be clearer if I posted the function, so here it is. > > > > > > void do_alts( CHAR_DATA *ch, char *argument ) { > > > DIR *player_dir; > > > struct dirent *players; > > > CHAR_DATA *victim, *lch; > > > char buf[MSL]; > > > char output[MSL] = { '\0' }; > > > int count = 0; > > > > > > if ( ( victim = get_char_online(argument) ) == NULL ) > > > { > > > if ( ( victim = get_char_offline(argument) ) == NULL ) > > > { > > > send_to_char("The character was not found to > > > compare against.\n\r", ch); > > > return; > > > } > > > } > > > > > > send_to_char( "^fPlease wait while we scan for alts. " > > > "This process can take a minute...^0\n\r\n\r", ch ); > > > > > > send_to_char( "Searching pfiles", ch ); > > > > > > if ( ( player_dir = opendir(PLAYER_DIR) ) != NULL ) > > > { > > > while ( ( players = readdir(player_dir) ) != NULL ) > > > { > > > send_to_char( ".", ch ); > > > > > > if ( !str_cmp( players->d_name, "." ) > > > || !str_cmp( players->d_name, ".." ) ) > > > continue; > > > > > > if ( !str_cmp( players->d_name, victim->name ) ) > > > continue; > > > > > > if ( ( lch = get_char_online(players->d_name) ) > > == NULL ) > > > lch = get_char_offline(players->d_name); > > > > > > if ( !str_cmp( victim->pcdata->host, > > lch->pcdata->host ) ) > > > { > > > if ( !IS_SET( lch->pen, PEN_SNOOP_PROOF ) > > > && !IS_IMMORTAL(lch) ) > > > { > > > sprintf( buf, "^$%2d^!) ^$%s^0\n\r", ++count, > > > lch->name ); > > > strcat( output, buf ); > > > } > > > } > > > > > > unload_char(lch); > > > } > > > > > > send_to_char( "\n\r\n\r", ch ); > > > if ( count > 0 ) > > > { > > > sprintf( buf, "Below is a list of all characters > > > connecting" > > > " from host:\n\r\t%s\n\r\n\r", > > victim->pcdata->host ); > > > send_to_char( buf, ch ); > > > > > > send_to_char( output, ch ); > > > } > > > else > > > send_to_char( "No matches found.\n\r", ch ); > > > } > > > else > > > bug( "Could not open PLAYER_DIR!", 0 ); > > > > > > closedir(player_dir); > > > unload_char(victim); > > > return; > > > } > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Jason Gauthier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > To: "Valnir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Cc: <[email protected]> > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:44 AM > > > Subject: RE: Pausing a Loop. > > > > > > > > > Your best bet would be to run that in a separate thread. > > > (or fork(), if you don't want to mess with threading) > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > > > Behalf Of Valnir > > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:41 AM > > > > To: [email protected] > > > > Subject: Pausing a Loop. > > > > > > > > Ok, I created a nice little function so that my immortals can > > > > find the alts of the any character on the game by comparing > > > > against the host listed in the pfiles. The problem is that > > > > since it loads and unloads every pfile, it takes a minute to > > > > run, and since it does that, it literally pauses the game > > > > while it's running. What command can I add into the loop to > > > > tell it to pick up other process requests, etc? I'm sure > > > > there is one, and I just don't know what it is. > > > > > > > > Thanks in advance! > > > > - Valnir > > > > > > > > -- > > > > ROM mailing list > > > > [email protected] > > > > http://www.rom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rom > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > ROM mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://www.rom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rom > > > > > > > -- > > ROM mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://www.rom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rom > > > > -- > ROM mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.rom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rom >
