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A game debug console - help

Started by Vulcan Jan 29, 2003 at 7:32 PM 2 replies 850+ views

Original Post

Jan 29, 2003 at 7:32 PM

I have this little game debug console thing. It all works nice and fins and everything, I just want to simplyfy the syntax for it. The way I have it now, you can just spit messages out to the console, like so sConsole() << "here is some message"; sConsole().End(); The End() method adds the constructed string finally to the console, and prepares for another msg, etc. what I want to be able to do is sConsole() << "here is some message" << End(); But I cannot figure out for the life of me the syntax to allow this to work. Any help? btw - I dont just have an ''End'' function, I have other functions such as changing the current color of the text, etc... -Vulcan

darookie

121

darookie

Jan 29, 2003 at 7:58 PM

Simple.
You need to overload the ''<<'' operator - check google for C++ operator overloading. A suggestion of mine would be the following:

  

// struct that is used to set the color

struct SetColor
{
    int mColor;  // actual color value

    // constructor that initializes member 

    SetColor(const int nColor) : mColor(nColor)
    {}

    // convert to integer

    const operator int() const
    {
        return mColor;
    }
};

// just an empty type

struct End {};

class Console
{
     // other stuff here


     void SetColor(cont int nColor)
     {
         // change our text color for output here

     }

     // text output

     Console& operator << (const string& strText)
     {
         // call your printing function here

         return *this;
     }

     // end output

     Console& operator << (const End& sEnd)
     {
         return (*this << "\n"; // or whatever you use to end

     }
     
     // change output color

     Console& operator << (const SetColor& sColor)
     {
         SetTextColor(sColor);
         return *this;
     }

};

// usage example

Console sColor;

sColor << "This is a " << SetColor(GREEN) << "green" << SetColor(GREY) << " text" << End();

Just my 0.02€,
Pat

Vulcan

Author

Vulcan

Jan 29, 2003 at 8:10 PM

Ohhhhhhh I see now.... so the End() would not actually be a method but a struct/class called End but then overloaded by the Console so simply end the line?

thanks much for the help, i was thinking it would be more of a method than overloading for a constructed object

thx
-Vulcan

[edited by - Vulcan on January 29, 2003 9:17:15 PM]

daerid

Jan 29, 2003 at 8:12 PM

Actually, I was gonna post my SDL based pluggable console here in a bit, but what I did for it was this:

  
class SDL_Console
{
public:
  // some stuff

  // Stream operators

  enum OpFlag 
  {
    Flush = 0x01,
    Exec = 0x02,
    Term = Flush | Exec
  };
  
  SDL_Console& operator<<(OpFlag op);

  // some other stuff

};

SDL_Console& SDL_Console::operator<<(SDL_Console::OpFlag of)
{
  if(of & Exec)
    Execute(m_stringBuffer.str());
  if(of & Flush)
  {
    Out(m_stringBuffer.str());
    m_stringBuffer.str("");
  }
  return *this;
}

That way, you can do things like:

  
con << "echo here" << SDL_Console::Term;
// output: "here"

con << "echo this" << SDL_Console::Exec << " is a test" << Flush;
// output: this

// output: echo this is a test

I hope that makes sense.

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