HOWTO: Inter-plugin communication

[NiLSPACE]

Easiest thing to do is probably concat the table and resurrect it on the other side, asumming it's full of strings or ints.

It's full of functions

[bearbin]

Oh, can't do that. Maybe store then as strings instead that can be called through IPC?

[NiLSPACE]

Well as you could maybe see in my Login plugin I can't do that. The functions in that table are specific for that table and can't be used outside it. You can compare it with a World or Player object.

[FakeTruth]

You cannot pass functions as it is right now

[NiLSPACE]

Yea I know, but you can pass userdata. And with my 'Login' plugin I have a table with functions in it where I keep my passwords. So I was wondering if I could somehow convert the table to userdata so it could be passable. This is the code:

function LoadPasswords(Path)
	local File = io.open(Path)
	local Table = {}
	if File then
		for I in File:lines() do
			local Split = StringSplit(I, ";")
			Table[Split[1]] = Split[2]
		end
		File:close()
	else
		local File = io.open(Path, "w")
		File:write()
		File:close()
	end
	local Object = {}
	function Object:GetPassFromPlayer(PlayerName)
		if Table[PlayerName] ~= nil then
			return true, Table[PlayerName]
		end
		return false
	end
	
	function Object:AddPass(PlayerName, Password)
		if Table[PlayerName] == nil then
			Table[PlayerName] = md5(Password)
			return true
		end
		return false
	end
	
	function Object:RemovePlayer(PlayerName)
		if Table[PlayerName] ~= nil then
			Table[PlayerName] = nil
			return true
		end
		return false
	end
	
	function Object:ChangePass(PlayerName, NewPassword)
		if Table[PlayerName] ~= nil then
			Table[PlayerName] = md5(NewPassword)
			return true
		end
		return false
	end
	
	function Object:PlayerExists(PlayerName)
		if Table[PlayerName] ~= nil then
			return true
		end
		return false
	end
	
	function Object:ReturnTable()
		return Table
	end
	
	function Object:Save()
		local File = io.open(Path, "w")
		for I, k in pairs(Table) do
			File:write(I .. ";" .. k .. "\n")
		end
		File:close()
	end
	return Object
end

[FakeTruth]

Yeah that's not gonna work
You will have to make those Object functions global so other plugins can access them.

Use some kind of key to identify the Objects, this could be the player name and pass that key to the functions. You will need to keep track of the Objects in your plugin yourself.

I suppose you would like to call LoadPasswords() from another plugin? And then the other plugin will receive this Object containing functions.
To still have the same functionality without passing tables around you need to restructure some things.

local AllLoadedStuff = {}

function LoadPasswords(path)
	-- ... do stuff
	-- Create a unique key
	AllLoadedStuff[Key] = WhateverYouLoaded
	return Key
end

-- Former Object:GetPassFromPlayer
function GetPassFromPlayer(Key, PlayerName)
	local Object = AllLoadedStuff[Key];
	
	-- Still use Object functions
	return Object:GetPassFromPlayer(PlayerName)
	
	-- Or copy everything in here
	if Table[PlayerName] ~= nil then
            return true, Table[PlayerName]
	end
	return false
end

Not sure if it's clear what I mean?

[NiLSPACE]

Yes I think I know what you mean, but isn't there a way to create a userdata object? just like the cPlayer or cWorld object since that can be passed.

[FakeTruth]

In C++, yes. But that userdata is always shared data and therefore not thread safe. Not to mention that you still cannot store Lua functions in them, you would still have the same limitations as when you would simply send your table as a string like bearbin suggests.

[xoft]

Anyway, why would you want to make so much communication? It's inherently slow, so you can't be doing much through it.

[bearbin]

I thought it wasn't _that_ slow. I thought we benchmarked it to do 10000 things per tick on debug and it was fine?