[Solved] Can things like hashtables, triggers be constant?

[loktar]

Can things like hashtables, gamecaches, triggers be defined as constant globals when they won't be reassigned?

The reason I think they might not is that the actual object can change by storing/flushing values or adding events, conditions or actions.

Is there even a compelling reason to do it beyond ensuring that the variable won't be reassigned?
I imagine that there are no performance implications in JASS, or are there?

 

[Pyrogasm]

No they cannot, and there’s no reason to. I’m unaware of a significant performance difference for accessing constant integers vs regular integers (for example) but that may only be because the difference isn’t enough to be excited about.

The JASSHelper keyword to do what you want is readonly, which only allows setting of that variable within the scope it’s defined, but it can't be used in globals blocks, only struct member declarations.

 

[loktar]

Ah good to know. I only ask because I found myself wondering about this, as I have the habit of making variables constant whenever possible in C++.
So the constant keyword is kind of useless for private variables I suppose, especially with the readonly keyword, as long as you trust yourself not to reassign variables that shouldn't be.

Thanks =)

 

[Pyrogasm]

At one time Vex's optimizer specifically inlined all constant variables, but since the optimizer no longer really works that's kind of moot.

 

[loktar]

Just out of curiosity, is it possible to do that manually? Since it's just a preprocessor it should be, right?

 

[IcemanBo]

It makes code mostly easier to read for me, to directly use CAPITAL_NAMES with constant keyword for things you never re-assign.
To see what JassHelper and Vex's Optimizer concretly do about inlining I find this very interesting! (only partially related to constant) All About Inlining

 

[loktar]

Oh, I see, so JassHelper actually does automatically inline certain things, that's cool.

 

[IcemanBo]

Yeh, just ensure the optimizer is enabled at JassHelper settings, and debug mode is disabled.