Game Maker not recognizing variable - game-maker

Attempting to set up a targeting array for a MMO-style game in GameMaker8 Pro, I have this code in the create event for the player's character, which is and has been running perfectly fine:
j = 0
i = 0
g = 0
for (i=100000; i<1000000; i+=1) if instance_exists(i) {if i.object_index = enemy {global.ttarget[j] = i j+=1} if i.object_index = rk or i.object_index = sage {global.etarget[g] = i g += 1}}
global.rmtargets = j
global.etargets = g
Then running this code in the step event for the player character:
h = 0
g = 0
i = 0
for (i=0; i<global.rmtargets; i+=1) global.target[i] = 0
global.target[0]=101139
for (h = 0; h<global.rmtargets; h+=1){hv = -1
for (g = 0; g<global.rmtargets; g+=1){if global.ttarget[g].range > hv {hv = global.ttarget[g].range}}
global.target[h] = hv
global.ttarget[h] = -1}
Returns this error message:
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event
for object rk:
Error in code at line 8: for (g = 0; g<global.rmtargets; g+=1){if global.ttarget[g].range > hv {hv = global.ttarget[g].range}}
at position 61: Unknown variable range
Even though I have this in the create event for the enemy:
range = 0
range = distance_to_object(rk)
And I've used this sort of syntax all over:
global.target[target].threat[s] += damage
Help? Any ideas why Game Maker won't recognize the variable?

My best guess is that one or more of the enemy instances have been destroyed between the player create event and the step event where the error happens. Maybe a better solution would be to iterate over all the enemies using the with() construct, that is faster and you can be sure that all the instances you are working with actually exist.

try putting brackets around the object variable. I have had trouble references from a reference extension before.
(global.ttarget[g]).range
or even save it to a new variable
for (g = 0; g<global.rmtargets; g+=1)
{
curr_target = global.ttarget[g]
curr_target.range
}

Instead of using global. before each instance of the variable in the code, you could also initialize it with the command:
globalvar (variable), (variable2);
Then you would be able to use the variable without global. in front of it :)
If object rk is not the enemy then there is no global range variable detectable by object rk. Variables initialized without var or globalvar only apply for the object it was defined in.

First of all, put round brackets in if conditions.
Second you should give more informations about your environment and programming logic and IMO stop using all these global variables.
Anyway, from what i understood of what you're doing, try to use the with keyword:
with(global.ttarget[g]) {
other.hv = range;
}

Related

Variable/List Component scope in R?

I come from OOP background (C#/Java to be specific) and I really do not understand how R treat the variable from outside the function.
I made this example:
result = list();
result$total = 0;
result$count = 0;
result$something = "abc";
a = 1:10;
b = 10:20;
mapply(function(x, y) {
print(result$something);
# Does not work with either = or <--
result$total <-- result$total + x + y;
result$count <-- result$count + 1;
print(result$count);
}, x = a, y = b);
result$average = result$total / result$count;
print(result$total);
print(result$count);
print(result$average);
Here, clearly result is available to the anonymous function because the program did print "abc" 10 times.
However, the change to its component total and count does not survive. 10 times it prints 1 for the result$count, and the final 3 lines are 0, 0 and NaN.
Why is this happening? What should I do in this case, if I want the function to be able to change the variable value?
Note: in my real case, result is NOT a global variable, but is inside another function, and I will use return (result) from the function.

Is it possible to overload functions in Scilab?

I would like to know how to overload a function in scilab. It doesn't seem to be as simple as in C++. For example,
function [A1,B1,np1]=pivota_parcial(A,B,n,k,np)
.......//this is just an example// the code doesn't really matter
endfunction
//has less input/output variables//operates differently
function [A1,np1]=pivota_parcial(A,n,k,np)
.......//this is just an example// the code doesn't really matter
endfunction
thanks
Beginner in scilab ....
You can accomplish something like that by combining varargin, varargout and argn() when you implement your function. Take a look at the following example:
function varargout = pivota_parcial(varargin)
[lhs,rhs] = argn();
//first check number of inputs or outputs
//lhs: left-hand side (number of outputs)
//rhs: right-hand side (number of inputs)
if rhs == 4 then
A = varargin(1); B = 0;
n = varargin(2); k = varargin(3);
np = varargin(4);
elseif rhs == 5 then
A = varargin(1); B = varargin(2);
n = varargin(3); k = varargin(4);
np = varargin(5);
else
error("Input error message");
end
//computation goes on and it may depend on (rhs) and (lhs)
//for the sake of running this code, let's just do:
A1 = A;
B1 = B;
np1 = n;
//output
varargout = list(A1,B1,np1);
endfunction
First, you use argn() to check how many arguments are passed to the function. Then, you rename them the way you need, doing A = varargin(1) and so on. Notice that B, which is not an input in the case of 4 inputs, is now set to a constant. Maybe you actually need a value for it anyways, maybe not.
After everything is said and done, you need to set your output, and here comes the part in which using only varargout may not satisfy your need. If you use the last line the way it is, varargout = list(A1,B1,np1), you can actually call the function with 0 and up to 3 outputs, but they will be provided in the same sequence as they appear in the list(), like this:
pivota_parcial(A,B,n,k,np);: will run and the first output A1 will be delivered, but it won't be stored in any variable.
[x] = pivota_parcial(A,B,n,k,np);: x will be A1.
[x,y] = pivota_parcial(A,B,n,k,np);: x will be A1 and y will be B1.
[x,y,z] = pivota_parcial(A,B,n,k,np);: x will be A1, y will be B1, z will be np1.
If you specifically need to change the order of the output, you'll need to do the same thing you did with your inputs: check the number of outputs and use that to define varargout for each case. Basically, you'll have to change the last line by something like the following:
if lhs == 2 then
varargout = list(A1,np1);
elseif lhs == 3 then
varargout = list(A1,B1,np1);
else
error("Output error message");
end
Note that even by doing this, the ability to call this functions with 0 and up to 2 or 3 outputs is retained.

How would you index a table that is being initialized?

An example of what I desire:
local X = {["Alpha"] = 5, ["Beta"] = this.Alpha+3}
print(X.Beta) --> error: [string "stdin"]:1: attempt to index global 'this' (a nil value)
is there a way to get this working, or a substitute I can use without too much code bloat(I want it to look presentable, so fenv hacks are out of the picture)
if anyone wants to take a crack at lua, repl.it is a good testing webpage for quick scripts
No there is no way to do this because the table does not yet exist and there is no notion of "self" in Lua (except via syntactic sugar for table methods). You have to do it in two steps:
local X = {["Alpha"] = 5}
X["Beta"] = X.Alpha+3
Note that you only need the square brackets if your key is not a string or if it is a string with characters other than any of [a-z][A-Z][0-9]_.
local X = {Alpha = 5}
X.Beta = X.Alpha+3
Update:
Based on what I saw on your pastebin, you probably should do this slightly differently:
local Alpha = 5
local X = {
Alpha = Alpha,
Beta = Alpha+3,
Gamma = someFunction(Alpha),
Eta = Alpha:method()
}
(obviously Alpha has no method because in the example it is a number but you get the idea, just wanted to show if Alpha were an object).

MATLAB: What happens for a global variable when running in the parallel mode?

What happens for a global variable when running in the parallel mode?
I have a global variable, "to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet", which is a vector of indexes that should be optimized using gamultiobj and I have set its value only in the main script(nowhere else).
My code works properly in serial mode but when I switch to parallel mode (using "matlabpool open" and setting proper values for 'gaoptimset' ) the mentioned global variable becomes empty (=[]) in the fitness function and causes this error:
??? Error using ==> parallel_function at 598
Error in ==> PF_gaMultiFitness at 15 [THIS LINE: constants(to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet) = individual;]
In an assignment A(I) = B, the number of elements in B and
I must be the same.
Error in ==> fcnvectorizer at 17
parfor (i = 1:popSize)
Error in ==> gamultiobjMakeState at 52
Score =
fcnvectorizer(state.Population(initScoreProvided+1:end,:),FitnessFcn,numObj,options.SerialUserFcn);
Error in ==> gamultiobjsolve at 11
state = gamultiobjMakeState(GenomeLength,FitnessFcn,output.problemtype,options);
E rror in ==> gamultiobj at 238
[x,fval,exitFlag,output,population,scores] = gamultiobjsolve(FitnessFcn,nvars, ...
Error in ==> PF_GA_mainScript at 136
[x, fval, exitflag, output] = gamultiobj(#(individual)PF_gaMultiFitness(individual, initialConstants), ...
Caused by:
Failure in user-supplied fitness function evaluation. GA cannot continue.
I have checked all the code to make sure I've not changed this global variable everywhere else.
I have a quad-core processor.
Where is the bug? any suggestion?
EDIT 1: The MATLAB code in the main script:
clc
clear
close all
format short g
global simulation_duration % PF_gaMultiFitness will use this variable
global to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet % PF_gaMultiFitness will use this variable
global IC stimulusMoment % PF_gaMultiFitness will use these variables
[initialConstants IC] = oldCICR_Constants; %initialize state
to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet = [21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 17 20];
LB = [ 0.97667 0.38185 0.63529 0.046564 0.23207 0.87484 0.46014 0.0030636 0.46494 0.82407 ];
UB = [1.8486 0.68292 0.87129 0.87814 0.66982 1.3819 0.64562 0.15456 1.3717 1.8168];
PopulationSize = input('Population size? ') ;
GaTimeLimit = input('GA time limit? (second) ');
matlabpool open
nGenerations = inf;
options = gaoptimset('PopulationSize', PopulationSize, 'TimeLimit',GaTimeLimit, 'Generations', nGenerations, ...
'Vectorized','off', 'UseParallel','always');
[x, fval, exitflag, output] = gamultiobj(#(individual)PF_gaMultiFitness(individual, initialConstants), ...
length(to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet),[],[],[],[],LB,UB,options);
matlabpool close
some other piece of code to show the results...
The MATLAB code of the fitness function, "PF_gaMultiFitness":
function objectives =PF_gaMultiFitness(individual, constants)
global simulation_duration IC stimulusMoment to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet
%THIS FUNCTION RETURNS MULTI OBJECTIVES AND PUTS EACH OBJECTIVE IN A COLUMN
constants(to_be_optimized_parameterIndexSet) = individual;
[smcState , ~, Time]= oldCICR_CompCore(constants, IC, simulation_duration,2);
targetValue = 1; % [uM]desired [Ca]i peak concentration
afterStimulus = smcState(Time>stimulusMoment,14); % values of [Ca]i after stimulus
peak_Ca_value = max(afterStimulus); % smcState(:,14) is [Ca]i
if peak_Ca_value < 0.8 * targetValue
objectives(1,1) = inf;
else
objectives(1, 1) = abs(peak_Ca_value - targetValue);
end
pkIDX = peakFinder(afterStimulus);
nPeaks = sum(pkIDX);
if nPeaks > 1
peakIndexes = find(pkIDX);
period = Time(peakIndexes(2)) - Time(peakIndexes(1));
objectives(1,2) = 1e5* 1/period;
elseif nPeaks == 1 && peak_Ca_value > 0.8 * targetValue
objectives(1,2) = 0;
else
objectives(1,2) = inf;
end
end
Global variables do not get passed from the MATLAB client to the workers executing the body of the PARFOR loop. The only data that does get sent into the loop body are variables that occur in the text of the program. This blog entry might help.
it really depends on the type of variable you're putting in. i need to see more of your code to point out the flaw, but in general it is good practice to avoid assuming complicated variables will be passed to each worker. In other words anything more then a primitive may need to be reinitialized inside a parallel routine or may need have specific function calls (like using feval for function handles).
My advice: RTM

iterative version of easy recursive algorithm

I have a quite simple question, I think.
I've got this problem, which can be solved very easily with a recursive function, but which I wasn't able to solve iteratively.
Suppose you have any boolean matrix, like:
M:
111011111110
110111111100
001111111101
100111111101
110011111001
111111110011
111111100111
111110001111
I know this is not an ordinary boolean matrix, but it is useful for my example.
You can note there is sort of zero-paths in there...
I want to make a function that receives this matrix and a point where a zero is stored and that transforms every zero in the same area into a 2 (suppose the matrix can store any integer even it is initially boolean)
(just like when you paint a zone in Paint or any image editor)
suppose I call the function with this matrix M and the coordinate of the upper right corner zero, the result would be:
111011111112
110111111122
001111111121
100111111121
110011111221
111111112211
111111122111
111112221111
well, my question is how to do this iteratively...
hope I didn't mess it up too much
Thanks in advance!
Manuel
ps: I'd appreciate if you could show the function in C, S, python, or pseudo-code, please :D
There is a standard technique for converting particular types of recursive algorithms into iterative ones. It is called tail-recursion.
The recursive version of this code would look like (pseudo code - without bounds checking):
paint(cells, i, j) {
if(cells[i][j] == 0) {
cells[i][j] = 2;
paint(cells, i+1, j);
paint(cells, i-1, j);
paint(cells, i, j+1);
paint(cells, i, j-1);
}
}
This is not simple tail recursive (more than one recursive call) so you have to add some sort of stack structure to handle the intermediate memory. One version would look like this (pseudo code, java-esque, again, no bounds checking):
paint(cells, i, j) {
Stack todo = new Stack();
todo.push((i,j))
while(!todo.isEmpty()) {
(r, c) = todo.pop();
if(cells[r][c] == 0) {
cells[r][c] = 2;
todo.push((r+1, c));
todo.push((r-1, c));
todo.push((r, c+1));
todo.push((r, c-1));
}
}
}
Pseudo-code:
Input: Startpoint (x,y), Array[w][h], Fillcolor f
Array[x][y] = f
bool hasChanged = false;
repeat
for every Array[x][y] with value f:
check if the surrounding pixels are 0, if so:
Change them from 0 to f
hasChanged = true
until (not hasChanged)
For this I would use a Stack ou Queue object. This is my pseudo-code (python-like):
stack.push(p0)
while stack.size() > 0:
p = stack.pop()
matrix[p] = 2
for each point in Arround(p):
if matrix[point]==0:
stack.push(point)
The easiest way to convert a recursive function into an iterative function is to utilize the stack data structure to store the data instead of storing it on the call stack by calling recursively.
Pseudo code:
var s = new Stack();
s.Push( /*upper right point*/ );
while not s.Empty:
var p = s.Pop()
m[ p.x ][ p.y ] = 2
s.Push ( /*all surrounding 0 pixels*/ )
Not all recursive algorithms can be translated to an iterative algorithm. Normally only linear algorithms with a single branch can. This means that tree algorithm which have two or more branches and 2d algorithms with more paths are extremely hard to transfer into recursive without using a stack (which is basically cheating).
Example:
Recursive:
listsum: N* -> N
listsum(n) ==
if n=[] then 0
else hd n + listsum(tl n)
Iteration:
listsum: N* -> N
listsum(n) ==
res = 0;
forall i in n do
res = res + i
return res
Recursion:
treesum: Tree -> N
treesum(t) ==
if t=nil then 0
else let (left, node, right) = t in
treesum(left) + node + treesum(right)
Partial iteration (try):
treesum: Tree -> N
treesum(t) ==
res = 0
while t<>nil
let (left, node, right) = t in
res = res + node + treesum(right)
t = left
return res
As you see, there are two paths (left and right). It is possible to turn one of these paths into iteration, but to translate the other into iteration you need to preserve the state which can be done using a stack:
Iteration (with stack):
treesum: Tree -> N
treesum(t) ==
res = 0
stack.push(t)
while not stack.isempty()
t = stack.pop()
while t<>nil
let (left, node, right) = t in
stack.pop(right)
res = res + node + treesum(right)
t = left
return res
This works, but a recursive algorithm is much easier to understand.
If doing it iteratively is more important than performance, I would use the following algorithm:
Set the initial 2
Scan the matrix for finding a 0 near a 2
If such a 0 is found, change it to 2 and restart the scan in step 2.
This is easy to understand and needs no stack, but is very time consuming.
A simple way to do this iteratively is using a queue.
insert starting point into queue
get first element from queue
set to 2
put all neighbors that are still 0 into queue
if queue is not empty jump to 2.

Resources