Re: Having issues with a action looping - C# Discussion Boards

8-Jan-15 7:12

Hi! I'm newer to c# and I'm making a very simple game where I basically give AI directional instructions. The problem is, the commands keep looping! When I issue "TurnRight" I only want it to happen once, but the object doesn't stop spinning and non of my other commands, Idle, TurnLeft, etc, want to work. Help would be appreciated!!!!

Example:

case Ability.TurnRight:
switch (m_facing)
{
case World.Direction.North:
m_facing = World.Direction.East;
break;
case World.Direction.South:
m_facing = World.Direction.West;
break;
case World.Direction.East:
m_facing = World.Direction.South;
break;
case World.Direction.West:
m_facing = World.Direction.North;
break;
}
break;

Pete O'Hanlon8-Jan-15 7:26

Pete O'Hanlon

8-Jan-15 7:26

Okay, the problem here seems to be that whatever you have that triggers the switch isn't being set to a neutral state. In other words, you are in a situation where you have Ability.TurnRight set, and then you're switching based on m_facing, which sets a case that gets triggered again immediately. What I would do, immediately after your switch statement, reset the variable that contains Ability.TurnRight.

Member 113620598-Jan-15 7:48

8-Jan-15 7:48

Thanks for the response! Ok, that makes sense, but I thought the "break;" would prevent the command from continuing? (Still digging through the files)

And for more clarity I'm using a parent "MainChar" and child of "PacMan". I set up the array of "moves" (like exampled in my previous post) in the "MainChar" and I'm trying to issue the commands in "PacMan" so I can make him turn and move forward to collect all the pips before dying.

Pete O'Hanlon8-Jan-15 9:11

Pete O'Hanlon

8-Jan-15 9:11

No, break is a keyword that is required in a switch statement to say that a particular piece of code has "finished". It doesn't reset any variables. Let me demonstrate with a simple example:

bool finished;
int i = 0;
while (!finished)
{
  switch (i)
  {
    case 0:
      Console.WriteLine("Loopy");
      break;
    case 1:
      finished = true;
      break;
  }
}

As you can see, this will never finish because i is never set to 1.

Member 113620598-Jan-15 9:49

8-Jan-15 9:49

Thanks for the example. I'm starting to see what you mean by the "looping". To apply that to another ability, with the following example "Forward" PacMan will continue moving forward as long as the space in front of him is empty because the only check for success is that the space in "front" of him is empty, as determined by "LookForward"?

case Ability.Forward:
    GameObject.Type objectTypeInDesiredPosition = LookForward();
    if (objectTypeInDesiredPosition == GameObject.Type.Empty)
    {
        SetPosition(GetFowardPosition());
    }
    break;

BillWoodruff8-Jan-15 8:37

BillWoodruff

8-Jan-15 8:37

The issue of "involuntary recursion" is sometimes something you can't avoid having to handle: for example, events of certain WinForm Controls will be called when a Form is initialized, which may trigger side-effects that need to be stopped.

If you can't easily re-design your flow-of-control to eliminate this problem, then a "fix" is to:

0. first test to see if setting 'm_facing is triggering the recursion: create a boolean variable in Form scope:

private bool dontRecurse = false;

// use that variable like this:

private void MyMethod(...)
{
    if(dontRecurse) return;

    dontRecurse = true;

    switch(...)
    {
        case Ability.TurnRight:

        switch (m_facing)
        {
            case World.Direction.North:
            m_facing = World.Direction.East;
            break;
    
            case World.Direction.South:
            m_facing = World.Direction.West;
            break;
    
            case World.Direction.East:
            m_facing = World.Direction.South;
            break;
    
            case World.Direction.West:
            m_facing = World.Direction.North;
            break;
        }
    }

    dontRecurse = false;
}

Observe if this fixes the problem: if it does not then:

1. using the debugger: set a break-point in the code where you the first change occurs: in your case that would in one of the Switch/Case clauses before 'm_facing is set.

2. run your code making sure you trigger a case where you hit the break-point, and then single-step (F11) from the break-point to isolate what is triggering the re-execution of the the case statement.

When you have a clear understanding of what triggers the recursion, then re-design or use boolean flag as necessary.

«A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards ... as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push» Wittgenstein

Member 113620598-Jan-15 9:50

Convert from Base 64 to hexadecimal value

8-Jan-15 9:50

Thanks for the tips! I'll try to use this. ^^

NJdotnetdev8-Jan-15 7:10

8-Jan-15 7:10

I have a base64 input("NjU0MDgA=") in a XML file which I am trying to convert to hexadecimal with the following code in C#:

ASCIIEncoding ascii = new ASCIIEncoding();
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("NjU0MDgA=");
string hex = BitConverter.ToString(bytes);
hex.Replace("-", String.Empty);

The 'hex' output is in the following format:
4D5459334D5445344D4467413D

However, required output should be in the format:
#44ff11 (example)

SledgeHammer018-Jan-15 7:25

SledgeHammer01

8-Jan-15 7:25

I'm confused. NjU0MDgA= decoded is "65408" which is FF80 in hex.

NJdotnetdev8-Jan-15 7:32

8-Jan-15 7:32

Apologies for any confusion.. I just gave sample values.

I am trying to get the values you mentioned programmatically.

PIEBALDconsult8-Jan-15 7:32

PIEBALDconsult

8-Jan-15 7:32

I use Encoding.GetString ( System.Convert.FromBase64String ( Source ) ), which yields TmpVME1EZ0E9 from your sample data.

NJdotnetdev8-Jan-15 7:34

8-Jan-15 7:34

And hex should be "4E6A55304D4467413D"

PIEBALDconsult8-Jan-15 7:42

PIEBALDconsult

8-Jan-15 7:42

I'm not following you. From TmpVME1EZ0E9 I get 546D70564D4531455A304539

The sequence you state yields NjU0MDgA= ; I think you need to read up on Base64; it isn't just base64 values of ASCII characters.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.convert.frombase64string(v=vs.110).aspx[^]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_64[^]

modified 8-Jan-15 14:05pm.

NJdotnetdev13-Jan-15 8:48