Find the order of the object itself in a table?

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ilovelove2019
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Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:38 am

Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by ilovelove2019 »

Hello everyone! Let's go to the main topic.
I am programming games and now I want to destroy enemies. In main.lua I had a table named listOfFrog. I added the enemy by table.insert (listOfFrog, Frog (500, 400)) ... In player.lua, when the player collided with an enemy I called: enemy: boom () (with the enemy being object created from Frog class). The code in main.lua and player.lua is okay already. And the problem starts here: In Frog.lua I have a function as follows:

Code: Select all

function Frog:boom()
    self.collider:destroy()
    table.remove(listOfFrog, ???)
end
I do not know what to fill in the question mark. I tried table.remove(listOfFrog) and when the player collides with a frog, it clears the remaining frogs. I tried table.remove(listOfFrog, self) and it have error. I know I must be like this: table.remove(listOfFrog, The order of this object in listOfFrog). But I don't know how to get it!

More, In player.lua, I handled the collision as follows:

Code: Select all

if self.collider:enter('Frog') then
        local collision_data = self.collider:getEnterCollisionData('Frog')
        local enemy = collision_data.collider:getObject()
        if enemy.collider:getY() > self.collider:getY() then
            self.collider:applyLinearImpulse(0, -100)
            print("ouch")
            enemy:boom()
        end
    end
(I use windfield library to handle physics).

Hope you will help me as soon as possible. Thank you so much!
monolifed
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Posts: 188
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:42 pm

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by monolifed »

you might set frog status to dead
then you can clean then at once (you can also copy alive ones to a new table)

Code: Select all

for i=#listofrogs, 1, -1 do
	if listofrogs[i].status == "dead" then remove(listofrogs, i) end
end
or since self points to your frog you can do

Code: Select all

for k, v in ipairs(listofrogs) do
	if v == self then remove(listofrogs, k) break end
end
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raidho36
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Posts: 2063
Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:00 pm

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by raidho36 »

You can try this implementation of array: https://bitbucket.org/rcoaxil/lua-minil ... uarray.lua

It's tailored to store game objects such as enemies or bullets (but it can be any type of value). Specifically, it will store exactly one of each value in the array, so you can keep adding them without checking every time and it'll sort itself automatically. Then, you can remove items by value (i.e. you pass the object itself and not its index number). And finally, you can iterate over objects in a for-loop like normal. To improve performance it also does a bit of book-keeping so it keeps its length (array.len) which is faster than using LuaJIT array length operator. If you don't care about specific order in which the objects appear in a for-loop (that's usually the case) then you can use "pull" instead of "remove" and "push" instead of "insert" which will work a lot faster.

Code: Select all

uarray = require("uarray")
listOfFrog = uarray()
listOfFrog:push(Frog(500, 400))

function Frog:boom()
    self.collider:destroy()
    listOfFrog:pullval(self) --object is pulled from table by value (not by index)
  --same as uarray.pullval(listOfFrog, self)
end
ilovelove2019
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Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:38 am

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by ilovelove2019 »

raidho36 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:25 pm You can try this implementation of array: https://bitbucket.org/rcoaxil/lua-minil ... uarray.lua

It's tailored to store game objects such as enemies or bullets (but it can be any type of value). Specifically, it will store exactly one of each value in the array, so you can keep adding them without checking every time and it'll sort itself automatically. Then, you can remove items by value (i.e. you pass the object itself and not its index number). And finally, you can iterate over objects in a for-loop like normal. To improve performance it also does a bit of book-keeping so it keeps its length (array.len) which is faster than using LuaJIT array length operator. If you don't care about specific order in which the objects appear in a for-loop (that's usually the case) then you can use "pull" instead of "remove" and "push" instead of "insert" which will work a lot faster.

Code: Select all

uarray = require("uarray")
listOfFrog = uarray()
listOfFrog:push(Frog(500, 400))

function Frog:boom()
    self.collider:destroy()
    listOfFrog:pullval(self) --object is pulled from table by value (not by index)
  --same as uarray.pullval(listOfFrog, self)
end
OH! Raidho36! It seems a good way but when I try it i get error. Sometimes, I jump in to Frog and it like this: Error: frog.lua:44: calling 'getLinearVelocity' on bad self (Body expected, got nil) (I have previously declared the following

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xVel,yVel = self.collider:getLinearVelocity()
). Can you help me? Thank you
ilovelove2019
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Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:38 am

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by ilovelove2019 »

ingsoc451 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:11 pm you might set frog status to dead
then you can clean then at once (you can also copy alive ones to a new table)

Code: Select all

for i=#listofrogs, 1, -1 do
	if listofrogs[i].status == "dead" then remove(listofrogs, i) end
end
or since self points to your frog you can do

Code: Select all

for k, v in ipairs(listofrogs) do
	if v == self then remove(listofrogs, k) break end
end
Your solution work perfectly. I have tried it and everything so good. Thanh you
ilovelove2019
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Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:38 am

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by ilovelove2019 »

I am really happy now. During the course of my game programming, I went through many different programming languages, game engines, and frameworks. Each has its own community. But for me, the love2d community is the friendliest. People are always kind and highly skilled. They are always ready to help me when needed. Truly awesome. Thank you very much.
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raidho36
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Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:00 pm

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by raidho36 »

Not sure what went wrong when you tried to use the array, but it's good to know you've got it all worked out.
ilovelove2019
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Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:38 am

Re: Find the order of the object itself in a table?

Post by ilovelove2019 »

raidho36 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:18 pm Not sure what went wrong when you tried to use the array, but it's good to know you've got it all worked out.
Thank you so much! :awesome: :awesome:
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