Writing mapcharacter schedules

Generalities

A mapcharacter schedule file should always be placed in the script/schedules/mapcharacters directory in the game hierarchy. It should contain a single class, named like the module. A schedule is attached to a mapcharacter by the mapcharacter::set_schedule () method. See it's documentation for more details. You should be particularly careful that the argument list given to mapcharacter::set_schedule () has to be a Python tuple containing ONLY Python strings or integers.

Arguments passed to __init__ ()

When you call mapcharacter::set_schedule (), the first argument passed to the class constructor is a reference to the mapcharacter that called this method. This parameter should be saved as it will most likely be used during the run () method to control the mapcharacter. Then follow the arguments inside the tuple (optionally) passed to mapcharacter::set_schedule ().

Arguments passed to run ()

No arguments are passed to the run () method.

Structure of a mapcharacter schedule file

Here is what a mapcharacter schedule file should ideally look like:
#
#  (C) Copyright <year> <your name>
#  Part of the Adonthell Project http://adonthell.linuxgames.com
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
#  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.
#
#  See the COPYING file for more details
#

#
#  <description of the schedule>
#

<do your imports here>

class myschedule:
    
    # Parameters:
    # Description of myparameter1
    # Description of myparameter2
    def __init__ (self, mapcharacterinstance, myparameter1, myparameter2):
        self.myself = mapcharacterinstance
        <do your other initialisation here>

    def run (self):
        <mapcharacter control>

    def __del__ (self)
        <eventual cleanup>

Storing variables

It is unsafe to store variables in the class instance others than those passed to the __init__ method. When a mapcharacter's schedule is state-saved, only the schedule filename and it's initialisation arguments (the Python tuple passed to mapcharacter::set_schedule ()) are saved. So, if you create variables in the self object, do not expect them to survive game saving/loading. A safe approach is to make use of the storage class, from which mapcharacter inherits, to store your persistant variables. Then they are automatically saved together with the mapcharacter.

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