[CS3][AS2] Nesting Objects Inside Other Objects?

[DoomOfTheLiving]

I'm trying to organize the massive amount of coding I'll need to do for an RPG I'm making before I get too far into it and realize I have to modify 1800 lines of code because I didn't plan things out ahead of time. Plus it'll make managing the game data easier, especially with saving. So what I'm trying to figure out is if it's possible to nest a set of objects within another object.

For example, I want to have a main container object called charContainer, inside of which I'll have individual character objects (char1, char2, char3, etc.). Inside of those character objects I'll store all of the character-specific variables like stats and equipment. Then I'll do the same thing with my other variables for enemy stats, items, and everything else.

So is this possible? Or is there a better way of organizing things? Any help would be appreciated.

[tonypa]

Should be possible.

[renderhjs]

just a simple guess:
you haven´t discovered arrays in combination with objects before

AS example

var array= new Array();
array.push({a:12,b:"name",c:0xff0000});
array.push({a:23,b:"John",c:0xee6622});

for (var i=0;i<array.length;i++){
    trace(i+". item a: "+array[i].a+", b: "+array[i].b+", c: "+array[i].c);
} 

for any explainations read the manual that comes with Flash (f1 key) and look for
- arrays
- objects

[tonypa]

Yes but you dont need to use arrays, you can use objects which to me have always been easier to manage. Array is only useful if you need to know how many objects your container has (its length) and/or if you need to know the position of each object inside container (is it first, last, next etc).

[DoomOfTheLiving]

Yeah, I figured I could use an array to sort everything, I just hate using them when I'm not dealing with numbers. I have a bunch of arrays set up for my characters' stats and a function that determines which level they are when they level up and then moves all of their stats up to the next level, but for all my variables I'd rather just be able to reference them like this:

function equipmentStats (CHAR) {
    if (charContainer.CHAR.weapon = "weapon1"){
        charContainer.CHAR.weaponSTR = 12
    }
} 

Then I'd fill in the rest of the weapons, armor, accessories, etc. and when I call the function I'd replace "CHAR" with whichever character is being equipped with something. This way I just have to write one function, then call it for each individual character. Then when I need to save my game data I can just do this:

function saveGameData() {
    gameDataSO = SharedObject.getLocal("gameData");
    gameDataSO.data.charData = charContainer;
    gameDataSO.flush();
} 

The way I have it set up right now, I have a bunch of objects for 4 characters, 50+ enemies, 111 items, about 20 weapons... you get the idea. I'd rather consolidate all the related objects into one large container so I at least have some hierarchy and so I can just save those containers in my saveGameData function instead of saving each individual object.

Anyway, what I really need to know is how I would go about actually creating the nested object. Is it just this? -

containerObject = new Object
containerObject.nestedObject = new Object 

[VENGEANCE MX]

I'm not convinced that nested objects can be saved... when I tried saving anything other than strings and numbers in Commando 3, I eventually had to give up and make my own proprietary data format (in the form of a single long string).

[DoomOfTheLiving]

I'm not convinced that nested objects can be saved... when I tried saving anything other than strings and numbers in Commando 3, I eventually had to give up and make my own proprietary data format (in the form of a single long string).

How exactly did you do that? Building the string itself would be easy enough but how would I retrieve the information from that string and redistribute it to all the variables when the player loads the saved game?

[VENGEANCE MX]

Something like:

myString = "player1|100|true
player2|75|false";

myArray = myString.split("\n", 1000);
// myArray = ["player1|100|true", "player2|75|false"];

for (i=0; i<myArray.length; i++) {
array2 = myArray[i].split("|", 1000);
// array2 = ["player1", "100", "true"]; or other. btw it's a string "true" not a Boolean
createPlayer(array2[0], array2[1], array2[2]); // pass these values to createPlayer() function
} 

Something like that?

[DoomOfTheLiving]

So basically what you're doing is telling Flash that every time there's a return (\n) in the string, it separates the string into different array values, then when it finds a | in the array you just made, it further splits them into individual values and puts them into a 2nd array? Seems simples enough. What's the 1,000 for after you tell it where to split them?