Event_system - hpgDesigns/hpgdesigns-dev.io GitHub Wiki

For the sake of efficiency, an event system is necessary that will allow execution of various events in each object, but that will skip events that have nothing in them to be executed. Also, checks should be done as far ahead of time as possible and as seldom as possible. At the same time, it's best not to hard-code those checks, or any special event behavior, into anything needing recompiled. Lastly, each event will need its own function skip so return; doesn't break anything. Take all of that into consideration, and the result is this system.

Philosophy

Game Maker provided no method of looking up nor modifying event order. Adding events is likewise basically impossible. This is practically a crime. To correct these problems, ENIGMA stores event code in a separate file to allow easy retrieval and modification of such.

Design

The structure of the event iterator system is yet another linked list, but this time it is single-linked and contains a pointer instances, to a double-linked list of instances as described by the Instance System, rather than a pointer to a single instance. These iterators introduce a new member, "condition," as well. The "condition" member is a pointer to a function returning bool. It can be NULL. If the function indicated by condition() is NULL, or it returns true when called, traversal of instances begins.

While iterating instances, no further checks are performed by the iteration system. Instead, checks such as if (visible) in draw events are added into each event's code by the ENIGMA compiler, and are not implemented at the expense of an additional CALL.

To promote extensibility, the compiler reads what code to insert into which event from the resource file events.res.

Removal

Event types themselves--such as keyboard, step, draw, etc--are typically neither removed nor added. Instances being iterated can be removed while the instances iterator is on them, potentially invalidating the iterator and leading to problems. The method to correcting this can be found in the Instance System page.