Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. I am trying to understand why overloaded_variable, which sometimes is a number and sometimes a text substitution…
"Puzzling Behavior" by Mim
The Test Room is a room.
The overloaded_variable is initially 0.
Instead of examining the player:
now the overloaded_variable is 2;
say "[overloaded_variable][paragraph break]";
To say overloaded_variable:
choose row overloaded_variable in the Table of Messages;
say "[text entry]";
Table of Messages
index text
1 "Kek."
2 "It works!"
…behaves as I intended, and does not bug the hell out of me.
This also works as intended. (Now the name of the table is overloaded_variable too, kek).
"Puzzling Behavior" by Mim
The Test Room is a room.
The overloaded_variable is initially 0.
Instead of examining the player:
now the overloaded_variable is 2;
say "[overloaded_variable][paragraph break]";
To say overloaded_variable:
choose row overloaded_variable in the Table overloaded_variable;
say "[text entry]";
Table overloaded_variable
index text
1 "Kek."
2 "It works!"
Let us comment the [now the overloaded_variable is 2;] line.
"Puzzling Behavior" by Mim
The Test Room is a room.
The overloaded_variable is initially 2.
Instead of examining the player:
[now the overloaded_variable is 2;]
say "[overloaded_variable][paragraph break]";
To say overloaded_variable:
choose row overloaded_variable in the Table overloaded_variable;
say "[text entry]";
Table overloaded_variable
index text
1 "Kek."
2 "It works!"
Why does this code behave as if the To say phrase did not overwrite the numerical value? In particular, why is the line
choose row overloaded_variable in the Table overloaded_variable;
acting as if the To say phrase did not overwrite the numerical value?
I guess that could be your answer. The ‘To say’ phrase did print the correct thing, however, as it redefined the variable. Maybe the magic word was ‘intially’, perhaps meaning at the beginning of the turn, as you say. I’m not sure I recall this concept from the manual…?? (real experts, please chime in!)
There are three different things here going by the same name: a variable, a to-say-phrase and a table. The compiler tries to glean from context which is meant where. The only point where this needs an order of precedence is this one: The to-say-phrase takes precedence over the variable in the context of the say function.
The reassignment with now to a numeric value is obviously an operation on the variable. Choosing a row can only be done with a table, so that’s clear.
The “initially” initializes the variable before the beginning of play. If you initialize it to 1 and leave the reassignment commented out, It’ll say “Kek.” if you initialize it to 3, it will throw a run time error.
