RU/Debugging
При написании скриптов вы обязательно столкнетесь с проблемами, которые не сможете решить немедленно. Цель этой страницы - показать вам основные способыы нахождения ошибок.
Консоль отладки
MTA включает консоль, которая показывает отладочные сообщения, выводимые функциями MTA и скриптами. Вы можете открыть ее введя debugscript x в консоли, где x уровень отладки:
- 1: только ошибки
- 2: ошибки и предупреждения
- 3: ошибки, предупреждения и информационные сообщения
Так, введя debugscript 3, вы будете видеть все сообщения, этот или 2 уровень рекомендуется в большинстве случаев. Рекомендуем держать debugscript включенным всё время, пока вы тестируете свой скрипт, это поможет вам обнаружить мелкие ошибки и исправить их.
Example
This example snippet has two errors:
if (getClientName(player) == "Fedor") outputChatbox("Hello Fedor") end
When the script this piece of code is in is tried to be loaded, debugscript will output something similiar to this:
This means the script could not be parsed, because there was a syntax error. It shows the path of the script, so you can also see what resource it is in ('myResource' in this case) and of course the name of the script. After the filename it shows the line number and again after that what was wrong. Easy to solve now, we just forgot the 'then' keyword:
if (getClientName(player) == "Fedor") then outputChatbox("Hello Fedor") end
Now the script will load fine and won't output any errors, until a player with the name 'Fedor' enters this section of the script. Then, debugscript will output:
This means the called function does not exist, which can be easily explained since the functions' name is outputChatBox (with a capital B):
if (getClientName(player) == "Fedor") then outputChatBox("Hello Fedor") end
This is of course just an example, there are plenty of other messages and scenarios, but you should get the idea.
Debug logging
You can also turn debug message logging on by editing coreconfig.xml in your GTA\MTA folder. You should find the following tag:
<debugfile/>
Replace that with a tag specifying the file you want to log messages to (file path is relative from the GTA folder):
<debugfile>MTA\debugscript.log</debugfile>
All debug messages will be appended to the specified file from now on. To turn logging off, replace that line with an empty tag again.
Debug strategies
There are several strategies that support finding errors, apart from going through the code of course. Most of them include outputting debug messages, with differing information depending on the situtation.
Useful functions
First of all some functions that may come in handy for debugging.
- outputDebugString or outputChatBox for outputting any information
- tostring() on a variable to turn it into a string, for example when it contains a boolean value
- getElementType to check an MTA Element for its type
Add debugmessages to check if, when or how often a section of code is executed
A typical example would be verify whether an if-section is executed or not. To do that, just add any message you will recognize later within the if-section.
if (variable1 == variable2) then outputDebugString("entered if") -- do anything end
Another application would be to check when variable values are modified. First search for all occurences of the variable being edited and add a message just beside it.
Add debugmessages to check the value of a variable
Let's say you want to create a marker, but it doesn't appear at the position you expect it to be. The first thing you might want to do is check if the createMarker function is executed. But while doing this, you can also check the values being used in the createMarker function in one run.
outputChatBox(tostring(x).." "..tostring(y).." "..tostring(z)) createMarker(x,y,z)
This would output all three variables that are used as coordinates for the marker. Assuming you read those from a map file, you can now compare the debug output to the desired values. The tostring() will ensure that the variables' value can be put together as a string, even if it's a boolean value for example.
Example
Imagine you created a colshape (collision shape) somewhere and you want a player to stay 10 seconds in it, then perform some action.
function colShapeHit(player) -- set a timer to output a message (could as well execute another function) -- store the timer id in a table, using the player as index colshapeTimer[player] = setTimer(outputChatBox,10000,1,"The player stayed 10 seconds in the colshape!") end addEventHandler("onColShapeHit",getRootElement(),colShapeHit) function colShapeLeave(player) -- kill the timer when the player leaves the colshape killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end addEventHandler("onColShapeLeave",getRootElement(),colShapeLeave)
When a player enters the colshape, debugscript outputs the following message:
This means you tried to index a table that does not exist. In the example above, this is done when storing the timer id in the table. We need to add a check if the table exists and if not create it.
function colShapeHit(player) if (colshapeTimer == nil) then colshapeTimer = {} end -- set a timer to output a message (could as well execute another function) -- store the timer id in a table, using the player as index colshapeTimer[player] = setTimer(outputChatBox,10000,1,"The player stayed 10 seconds in the colshape!") end addEventHandler("onColShapeHit",getRootElement(),colShapeHit) function colShapeLeave(player) -- kill the timer when the player leaves the colshape killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end addEventHandler("onColShapeLeave",getRootElement(),colShapeLeave)
Now we still get a warning when a player enters the colshape, waits for the message and leaves it again:
Except for that (we will talk about that later) everything seems to work fine. A player enters the colshape, the timer is started, if he stays the message occurs, if he leaves the timer is killed.
A more inconspicuous error
But for some reason the message gets outputted twice when you stay in the colcircle while in a vehicle. Since it would appear some code is executed twice, we add debug messages to check this.
function colShapeHit(player) if (colshapeTimer == nil) then colshapeTimer = {} end -- add a debug message outputDebugString("colShapeHit") -- set a timer to output a message (could as well execute another function) -- store the timer id in a table, using the player as index colshapeTimer[player] = setTimer(outputChatBox,10000,1,"The player stayed 10 seconds in the colshape!") end addEventHandler("onColShapeHit",getRootElement(),colShapeHit) function colShapeLeave(player) -- add a debug message outputDebugString("colShapeLeave") -- kill the timer when the player leaves the colshape killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end addEventHandler("onColShapeLeave",getRootElement(),colShapeLeave)
Now we notice that both handler functions get executed twice when we are in a vehicle, but only once when we are on-foot. It would appear the vehicle triggers the colshape as well. To confirm this theory, we check the player variable that should contain a player element.
function colShapeHit(player) if (colshapeTimer == nil) then colshapeTimer = {} end -- add a debug message, with the element type outputDebugString("colShapeHit "..getElementType(player)) -- set a timer to output a message (could as well execute another function) -- store the timer id in a table, using the player as index colshapeTimer[player] = setTimer(outputChatBox,10000,1,"The player stayed 10 seconds in the colshape!") end addEventHandler("onColShapeHit",getRootElement(),colShapeHit) function colShapeLeave(player) -- add a debug message, with the element type outputDebugString("colShapeLeave "..getElementType(player)) -- kill the timer when the player leaves the colshape killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end addEventHandler("onColShapeLeave",getRootElement(),colShapeLeave)
The debug messages tell us that one of the player variables is a player, the other one a vehicle element. Since we only want to react when a player enters the colshape, we add an if that will end the execution of the function if it's not an player element.
function colShapeHit(player) if (colshapeTimer == nil) then colshapeTimer = {} end -- add a check for the element type if (getElementType(player) ~= "player") then return end -- add a debug message, with the element type outputDebugString("colShapeHit "..getElementType(player)) -- set a timer to output a message (could as well execute another function) -- store the timer id in a table, using the player as index colshapeTimer[player] = setTimer(outputChatBox,10000,1,"The player stayed 10 seconds in the colshape!") end addEventHandler("onColShapeHit",getRootElement(),colShapeHit) function colShapeLeave(player) -- add a check for the element type if (getElementType(player) ~= "player") then return end -- add a debug message, with the element type outputDebugString("colShapeLeave "..getElementType(player)) -- kill the timer when the player leaves the colshape killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end addEventHandler("onColShapeLeave",getRootElement(),colShapeLeave)
Now the script should work as desired, but will still output the warning mentioned above. This happens because the timer we try to kill when a player leaves the colshape will not exist anymore when it reached the 10 seconds and is executed. There are different ways to get rid of that warning (since you know that the timer might not exist anymore and you only want to kill it if it is there). One way would be to check if the timer referenced in the table really exists. To do this, we need a little help function:
function isTimer(timer) local timers = getTimers() for k,v in ipairs(timers) do if (v == timer) then return true end end return false end
Which we will use when we kill the timer:
if (isTimer(colshapeTimer[player])) then killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end
So the complete working code would be:
function colShapeHit(player) if (colshapeTimer == nil) then colshapeTimer = {} end -- add a check for the element type if (getElementType(player) ~= "player") then return end -- add a debug message, with the element type outputDebugString("colShapeHit "..getElementType(player)) -- set a timer to output a message (could as well execute another function) -- store the timer id in a table, using the player as index colshapeTimer[player] = setTimer(outputChatBox,10000,1,"The player stayed 10 seconds in the colshape!") end addEventHandler("onColShapeHit",getRootElement(),colShapeHit) function colShapeLeave(player) -- add a check for the element type if (getElementType(player) ~= "player") then return end -- add a debug message, with the element type outputDebugString("colShapeLeave "..getElementType(player)) -- kill the timer when the player leaves the colshape if (isTimer(colshapeTimer[player])) then killTimer(colshapeTimer[player]) end end addEventHandler("onColShapeLeave",getRootElement(),colShapeLeave) function isTimer(timer) local timers = getTimers() for k,v in ipairs(timers) do if (v == timer) then return true end end return false end