Parse a string as an array

Game Development ChoiceScript Help
1

Is it possible to represent a string variable as an array?

For example, if I have the variable:

*temp string "test"

Can I transform it so that I can have each character as an element of an array, so it’s equivalent to the declaration below?

*temp_array string 4 "t" "e" "s" "t"

2

*temp string “test”
*temp_array temp_array 4 “”
*set temp_array#1 string.charAt(1)
*set temp_array#2 string.charAt(2)
*set temp_array#3 string.charAt(3)
*set temp_array#4 string.charAt(4)

  • Basically create a string variable called “string” and assign it the value “test”

  • Then create an array called “temp_array” with 4 elements, each to an empty string.

  • Finally, use the *set command to assign each character of the string to an element of the array using the charAt function.

3

It looks like ChoiceScript doesn’t know about the charAt function (I assume it’s valid in vanilla JavaScript). However, I did some digging around the CSLib files and found it has methods for obtaining characters out of strings. Namely,

*set result &(string#3)

this would put the third character of the variable string in result. However, I haven’t found any documentation on the & and # operators on the official CS wiki.

@CJW @cup_half_empty Is there any place I can find documentation about these operators? Also, if I use them, will I be able to publish the game via Hosted Games, or is it considered a “forbidden API”?

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4

I don’t know if there’s documentation about them. Your best bet is this forum. The wiki is maintained by the community and it isn’t up to date. I found the operators by looking at ChoiceScript’s source code and other people’s code. They are not prohibited and it won’t prevent you from publishing your game.

  • &: string concatenation

Used to “add” (concatenate) two strings together.

*set myVar "Hello, " & "World" 
*print myVar

This will output Hello, World.

  • #: index access for string

This is exclusive for string. You can access the character at a certain index (1-based).

*set myVar "Hello, World" # 1
*print myVar

This will output H.

  • Compound Assignment

If you start an assignment with an operator it will use the original value of the variable as the left hand side of the operation.

*temp myVar 1
*set myVar +1

The value of myVar should be 2 now. It’s the same as doing something like:

*temp myVar 1
*set myVar myVar + 1

Or, in other programming languages:

let myVar = 1;
myVar += 1;

I suggest using CSLib, it was meant to abstract the complex logic into simple interfaces.

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5

Thank you! The indexing operator is exactly what I needed.

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6

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7

For future readers, these operators are actually documented on the wiki to some extent:

Though evidently not very easy to find!

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