Coding info

Introduction

This page has information which would be useful for anyone who is doing coding for MTA SA. Coding guidelines also has a lot of useful info.

Also useful:

• Compiling MTASA on Windows
• Compiling MTASA on GNU/Linux

Directory Structure

Our project is organised into a number of different directories which serve different purposes:

• Client
• Server
• Shared: contains code shared between both the client and the server
• utils: utilities used to automate certain tasks
• vendor: unmodified third-party code and libraries (optionally linked to the appropriate third-party Git repository through Git submodules).

Projects explained

• Client - Core: Typically UI elements like main menu etc and isn't ever unloaded.
• Client - Deathmatch: Where MTA makes all it's functions and events do stuff.
• Client - Game SA: Low level stuff which is mainly function calls to the game so each element will have a game_sa class like Vehicle, Ped, Object etc.
• Client - GUI: It's just wrappers to CEGUI, you need not touch.
• Client - Launch: Is the MTA executable which loads loader, you need not touch.
• Client - Loader: You need not touch the loader either.
• Client - Multiplayer SA: Hooks, code modification and that sort of low level things that lets us work.
• Server - Core: Cazomino05: "I genuinely don't really know why we have server core."
• Server - Dbconmy: Stuff to do with the db* functions, you need not touch.
• Server - Deathmatch: All the server logic and storage classes for elements as well as Lua stuff.
• Server - Launcher: Just an executable to load all the DLLs we need.
• Shared - XML Module: XML module is just tinyxml and some high level wrapper functions for stuff we need.
• Dependencies: Has a load of 3rd party code, modules like sqlite, curl, lua, ehs, etc.
• CEGUI: Crazy Eddie's GUI system is a graphical user interface C++ library.

Some of the code may be explained in detail in pages under the this category: Classes (Blue)

Simplification of data types

MTA has some type definitions you can use (Can be found in Shared/sdk/SharedUtil.h)

• ulong = unsigned long
• uint = unsigned int
• ushort = unsigned short
• uchar = unsigned char
• uint64 = unsigned long long
• uint32 = unsigned int
• uint16 = unsigned short
• uint8 = unsigned char
• int64 = signed long long
• int32 = signed int
• int16 = signed short
• int8 = signed char
• BYTE = unsigned char
• WORD = unsigned short
• DWORD = unsigned long
• FLOAT = float

Debug Commands

MTA has some commands which you can use if you're running debug mode

• showsync - show sync data
• foo - debug command for devs
• showwepdata - shows the given player weapon data (nick)
• showtasks - shows the local player tasks (nick)
• showplayer - shows extended player information (nick)
• setmimic - enables player mimics (amount)
• setmimiclag - enables player mimic lag (amount)
• paintballs - enables paintball mode
• breakpoint - inserts breakpoint
• giveweapon - gives the player a weapon (id)
• showrpcs - shows the remote prodecure calls
• showinterpolation - shows information about the interpolation
• watch - enables wpm watch mode
• modules - enables wpm module
• debug - debug function 1
• debug2 - debug function 2
• debug3 - debug function 3
• debug4 - debug function 4

Entity types

• CCLIENTCAMERA - Camera
• CCLIENTPLAYER - Player
• CCLIENTVEHICLE - Vehicle
• CCLIENTRADARMARKER - Blip
• CCLIENTOBJECT - Object
• CCLIENTPICKUP - Pickup
• CCLIENTRADARAREA - RadarArea
• CCLIENTMARKER - Marker
• CCLIENTTEAM - Team
• CCLIENTPED - Ped
• CCLIENTPROJECTILE - Projectile
• CCLIENTIFP - EngineIFP
• CCLIENTGUI:
• CGUI_BUTTON - GuiButton
• CGUI_CHECKBOX - GuiCheckBox
• CGUI_EDIT - GuiEdit
• CGUI_GRIDLIST - GuiGridList
• CGUI_LABEL - GuiLabel
• CGUI_MEMO - GuiMemo
• CGUI_PROGRESSBAR - GuiProgressBar
• CGUI_RADIOBUTTON - GuiRadioButton
• CGUI_STATICIMAGE - GuiStaticImage
• CGUI_TAB - GuiTab
• CGUI_TABPANEL - GuiTabPanel
• CGUI_WINDOW - GuiWindow
• CGUI_SCROLLPANE - GuiScrollPane
• CGUI_SCROLLBAR - GuiScrollBar
• CGUI_COMBOBOX - GuiComboBox
• CCLIENTCOLSHAPE - ColShape
• SCRIPTFILE - File
• CCLIENTDFF - EngineDFF
• CCLIENTCOL - EngineCOL
• CCLIENTTXD - EngineTXD
• CCLIENTSOUND - Sound
• CCLIENTWATER - Water
• CCLIENTDXFONT - DxFont
• CCLIENTGUIFONT - GuiFont
• CCLIENTTEXTURE - DxTexture
• CCLIENTSHADER - DxShader
• CCLIENTWEAPON - Weapon
• CCLIENTEFFECT - Effect
• CCLIENTSCREENSOURCE - DxScreenSource
• CCLIENTRENDERTARGET - DxRenderTarget