[SOLVED] Maps, append vs []

[isak.andersson]

Hello!

 

I am new to Unigine and I am currently going through the UnigineScript documentation. Something that struck me is that I can not see a big difference between appending to a map and just setting a value. The documentation seems to recommend using append when inserting new values, so I am wondering if they are different in some way, maybe something regrading performance? Or perhaps it is just standard convention.

 

What I mean is what is the difference between doing:

int mymap[];
mymap["foo"] = "bar";

and:

int mymap[];
mymap.append("foo", "bar");

The first one seems to me like it's more concise than the second one. The behaviour does not seem to differ really, because when a key already exists, append overwrites the value, so therefor it should (?) work the exact same way as [].

 

Cheers!

[unclebob]

Greetings, sir!

 

They do similar things so no difference at all on script level. However, on asm level there's a little difference (pop values instead of calling function).

 

Disassemble for first sample:

0x000036db: pushc      int: -1
0x000036dd: calluac    map1
0x000036df: pushc      string: "bar"
0x000036e1: popuavc    map1[string: "foo"]

And for second sample:

0x000036e4: pushc      int: -1
0x000036e6: calluac    map2
0x000036e8: pushcc     string: "bar" string: "foo"
0x000036eb: calluafr   map2.append

I guess first sample is a little bit faster but nothing to worry about. Use any style you want. On Oil Rush we used 'append'-way a lot.

[isak.andersson]

Hey unclebob!

 

Thanks for your answer! :)

 

That cleared it up, I assume the first one must be faster because a function call gets added to the stack? Anyways I am glad that the method I prefer is faster. However, maybe there can be some advantage to using the function way simply because it calls a function (it would show up in stack traces etc).

 

What tool did you use to disassemble? usc?

 

Cheers!

[unclebob]

Hi Isak,

 

To see disassemble of UnigineScript you can type 'world_disassemble <filename>' in console and it'll save world script disassemble to specified file. For system and editor scripts you can use 'system_disassemble' and 'editor_disassemble' console commands.

[isak.andersson]

Neat!

 

Thank you very much.

[binstream]

This article can also be useful: https://developer.unigine.com/en/docs/1.0/scripting/language/debugging

[isak.andersson]

Very useful indeed! :D