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Problem with global property

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4 comments, last by cbken 16 years, 11 months ago
I have registered a global property, which is a pointer to a C++ object. The script is calling the class method but the object members have corrupted data and this tells me the object pointer must be invalid. I register the class object and method like so: CScriptManager::RegisterObjectType( "Object", 0, asOBJ_CLASS); CScriptManager::RegisterObjectMethod( "Object", "void ScriptGameObjectTest()", asMETHOD( CObject, ScriptGameObjectTest ), asCALL_THISCALL ); And the global property is registered like so: RegisterGlobalProperty( "Object GameObject", &mGameObject ); where mGameObject is a class member and the pointer to the CObject object. CObject* mGameObject; Everything is registered without errors. This is then the test script: void Test() { GameObject.ScriptGameObjectTest(); } Before the script function is called I set the value of the mGameObject variable to the CObject object. What am I doing wrong here since the CObject is not valid when it gets to the ScriptGameObjectTest() method? This is the class method: void CObject::ScriptGameObjectTest() { ... } In other words, the "this" pointer is invalid. Thanks
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The this pointer is invalid because you passed a pointer to a pointer to AngelScript when registering the property, but you told AngelScript that you wanted to register only a pointer to an object.

Two solutions:

Alternative 1:

RegisterGlobalProperty("Object GameObject", mGameObject);


Alternative 2:

RegisterGlobalProperty("Object @GameObject", &mGameObject);


Since you want to change the address that GameObject property holds, you'll want the second alternative. For this to work you'll need to make sure the Object type accepts object handles, by having the ADDREF and RELEASE behaviours set.

Regards,
Andreas

AngelCode.com - game development and more - Reference DB - game developer references
AngelScript - free scripting library - BMFont - free bitmap font generator - Tower - free puzzle game

Does the second alternative mean a copy of the object is passed to the script? I would like to avoid the penalty of copying it if possible. But since the class is registered with a size of zero I'd think it can't make a copy...
If I add the ADDREF and RELEASE behaviors, what does that mean exactly? I'd like to understand what it does "behind the scenes".

Slowly I'll get the hang of how AS works and how to use it :)


Adding the ADDREF and RELEASE behaviors and alternative 2 does indeed work. However now I'm unsure about what's exactly going on. Is a new object allocated and byte by byte copied or is it just using the pointer to the original object? I assume the ref count is incremented for the call and then again decremented at the end so the ref count should be back to 1.
Do I need to worry about this ref count at all, ie could I just have empty addref and release functions? The script is not supposed to create any objects or delete any on its own. The application should have full control over this. For now at least...

Thanks

When passing an object around by its handle, it is the pointer that is being passed around, no copies are being made. The ADDREF and RELEASE behaviours are called acording to how many variables are referencing the object.

You don't have to do anything in the functions registered for the ADDREF/RELEASE behaviours if you don't want to keep track of how many places a variable is holding a pointer to the object. However, then your application will be responsible for making sure the life time of the object is always longer than any of the variables that may be referencing it.

AngelCode.com - game development and more - Reference DB - game developer references
AngelScript - free scripting library - BMFont - free bitmap font generator - Tower - free puzzle game

Thanks for the info! Yes, I handle all that in the app and the script is destroyed before the object so it's not a problem.
It's working now and I learned a bit more about how it works. :)

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