Arma 2 Forward Compatibility

[General Barron]

Thanks for the heads-up, however, I'm not sure exactly what the definition of "initialized" is here.


Will there be new scripting commands to declare/initialize a variable?


Or do you just have to store a value in a variable first, as in _variable = 1?


I would assume the latter, but I just want to be 100% sure I understand.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Private declares a variable, although there is no matching declaration for public variables.

Edit:
Although this is perfectly valid in arma:
MyGlobalVariable = nil;

I would also like clarification on what BIS is considering initalised however.

[benreeper]

I would think that you would have to give the variable a value before it can be used in any operation.
--Ben

[General Barron]

I think this should be made into a sticky.

[hoz]

done.

[leehunt27]

I second the good news here! ***Figured as much but nice to know for sure that all the effort we are putting into learning Arma I won't be wasted. ***Thanks ***

[VictorFarbau]

* using of undefined variable in scripts (nil value) will be in ArmA 2 strictly reported as an error.

Excellent. So the parser reports an error if a variable has a value of NIL when being used in a statement. That means that this tedious search for variable typos in long scripts will be history
Like "_startxposition" vs "_starxposition" and the ususal typos, especially in longer or complex scripts.

Thanks,
VictorFarbau

[shiner]

So lets say I have the following code:

call compile format["%1Status = east", _varTarget];

_varTarget could be any number of targets and the variable beings stored doesn't exist before this moment. Does this count as initialization for that variable variable?

[benreeper]

I don't think so. I always declare them before I do that.
--Ben

Edit: I believe that is a valid declaration.

[sbsmac]

So lets say I have the following code:

call compile format["%1Status = east", _varTarget];

_varTarget could be any number of targets and the variable beings stored doesn't exist before this moment. Does this count as initialization for that variable variable?

Looks fine to me as long as _varTarget is defined. Let's say it is set to "foo".

Format creates the string "foo1Status=east".

Compile turns that into a command:-

foo1Status=east

Call runs the command so you are effectively creating a new initialised variable.