Let's use inline checkers in PType instead of constantly having to do clumsy IsKindOf checks etc. Once complete this also means that the types can be taken out of the class hierarchy, freeing up some common names.
Fixed bunch of compilation errors:
cannot pass non-trivial object of type 'FString' to variadic method; expected type from format string was 'char *' [-Wnon-pod-varargs]
Fixed linker erorr:
g_doomedmap.cpp.o: In function `InitActorNumsFromMapinfo()':
src/g_doomedmap.cpp: undefined reference to `PClass::FindActor(FName)'
Combining these two groups of data has been the cause of many hard to detect errors because it allowed liberal casting between types that are used for completely different things.
- fixed: IsVisibleToPlayer and optimized it a bit more.
- moved SourceLumpName to PClass, so that it can also be used for non-actors (there's a lot of non-Actor classes already.)
- separated the serializer for PClassPointer from PPointer. Even though not doable, a pointer to a class type is something entirely different than a class pointer with a restriction so each should handle its own case.
- added a few access functions for FActorInfo variables.
With PClassActor now empty the class descriptors can finally be converted back to static data outside the class hierarchy, like they were before the scripting merge, and untangle the game data from VM internals.
For these fields maps have no advantage. Linearly searching a small array with up to 10 entries is nearly always faster than generating a hash for finding the entry in the map.
- some optimization of access to OwnedStates in old DECORATE.
- consolidate all places that print a state name into a subfunction.
- allocate states from the ClassDataAllocator memory arena. States do not need to be freed separately from the rest of the static class data.
This reinstates the old FActorInfo as part of the meta data a class can have so that the class descriptor itself can be freed from any data not directly relevant for managing the class's type information.
This is not needed anymore because classes do not need to be replaced. The only reason this was implemented was the original design with the class descriptors taking on all the metadata themselves.
- made CameraHeight a modifiable actor property - it was readonly before.
- allow accessing the type constants from ZScript, this required quite a bit of explicit coding because the type system has no capabilities to search for basic types by name.
Making this an object had little to no advantage, except being able to remove the deleter code. Now, with some of the class data already being allocated in a memory arena so that freeing it is easier, this can also be used for the drop item lists which makes it unnecessary to subject them to the GC. This also merges the memory arenas for VM functions and flat pointers because both get deleted at the same time so they can share the same one.
Now all actors have the same metaclass and therefore it will always be the same size which will finally allow some needed changes to the type system which couldn't be done because it was occasionally necessary to replace tentatively created classes due to size mismatches.
As it stood, just compiling the internal ZScript code created more than 9000 DObjects, none of which really need to be subjected to garbage collection, aside from allowing lazy deallocation.
This puts an incredible drag on the garbage collector which often needs several minutes to finish processing before actual deletion can start.
The VM functions with roughly 1800 of these objects were by far the easiest to refactor so they are now. They also use a memory arena now which significantly reduces their memory footprint.
The original implementation just printed a mostly information-free message and then went on as if nothing has happened, making it ridiculously easy to write broken code and release it. Changed it to:
* Any VMAbortException will now terminate the game session and go back to the console.
* It will also print a VM stack trace with all open functions, including source file and line numbers pointing to the problem spots. For this the relevant information had to be added to the VMScriptFunction class.
An interesting effect here was that just throwing the exception object increased the VM's Exec function's stack size from 900 bytes to 70kb, because the compiler allocates a separate local buffer for every single instance of the exception object.
The obvious solution was to put this part into a subfunction so that it won't pollute the Exec function's own stack frame. Interesting side effect of this: Exec's stack requirement went down from 900 bytes to 600 bytes. This is still on the high side but already a lot better.
- fixed: When replacing a tentative class, the pointers in the morph objects were not replaced. Instead of adding more ReplaceClassRef methods I chose to integrate this part into the PointerSubstitution mechanism and delete ReplaceClassRef entirely. The code had some oversights anyway that would have caused problems, now that non-actors can be created.
It is utterly pointless to require every function that wants to make a VM call to allocate a new stack first. The allocation overhead doubles the time to set up the call.
With one stack, previously allocated memory can be reused. The only important thing is, if this ever gets used in a multithreaded environment to have the stack being declared as thread_local, although for ZDoom this is of no consequence.
- eliminated all cases where native code was calling other native code through the VM interface. After scriptifying the game code, only 5 places were left which were quickly eliminated. This was mostly to ensure that the native VM function parameters do not need to be propagated further than absolutely necessary.
- cleaned up the virtual function interface of APlayerPawn which still had many virtual declarations from old times when class properties were handled through virtual overrides. None of this makes sense these days anymore.
Needless to say, this is simply too volatile and would require constant active maintenance, not to mention a huge amount of work up front to get going.
It also hid a nasty problem with the Destroy method. Due to the way the garbage collector works, Destroy cannot be exposed to scripts as-is. It may be called from scripts but it may not be overridden from scripts because the garbage collector can call this function after all data needed for calling a scripted override has already been destroyed because if that data is also being collected there is no guarantee that proper order of destruction is observed. So for now Destroy is just a normal native method to scripted classes
- scriptified all Effect functions of Fastprojectile's children
- implemented access to class meta data.
- added a VM instruction to retrieve the class metadata, to eliminate the overhead of the function call that would otherwise be needed.
- made GetClass() a builtin so that it can use the new instruction
Important note about this commit: Scriptifying CFlameMissile::Effect revealed a problem with the virtual function interface: In order to work, this needs to be explicitly enabled for each single native class that may be used as a base for a scripted class. Needless to say, this will end up way too much work, as there are over 100 native classes, excluding those which will be scriptified. But in order to fix the problem this partially broken state needs to be committed first.
