world.SaveState

MUSHclient script function (Method)

Saves the state of the current plugin

Prototype

long SaveState();

Data type meanings

Description

This causes the current plugin to save its state (ie. its variables) to its "state" file. You might call this in a timer every couple of minutes to ensure that variables are saved in the event of a program or computer crash.

If a plugin has:

save_state="y"

in its plugin configuration (header), then its state is saved automatically as described below.

Plugins automatically save their state when they are closed (ie. when they are uninstalled, or when the world closes), and when the world file is saved. However if the world does not close for days then you may want to arrange for the plugin to save its state more often, particularly if the variables that the plugin is using are valuable.

The plugins by default save their state to a directory called "state" which is a subdirectory of the nominated "world plugins directory". If no such directory exists, then the plugin cannot save its state. The "save state" directory can be found by doing GetInfo (85).

There is a state file for each world/plugin combination.

The file name will look like this:

a282eaabbecd18a56aa07f84-c8efc9f9e1edd118c6f2dbf5-state.xml

This is:

(world ID)-(plugin ID)-state.xml

Each world should have a unique ID, and each plugin should have a unique ID, thus each world's plugin's state should have a unique file name.

Plugins are also forced to save their state when the main world file is saved (ie. world.Save is called, or you save the world file from the File menu).

If the plugin has an OnPluginSaveState function this is called before the state is saved - this lets the plugin serialize its script variables - that is, convert from script internal variables to MUSHclient variables.

If a plugin is not executing (that is, if this is called from outside a plugin execution) then no state can be saved and an error code is returned.

Prior to version 4.56 a plugin could not save its state by calling this function unless save_state was set as "y" in the plugin header.

VBscript example

world.SaveState

Jscript example

world.SaveState ();

PerlScript example

$world->SaveState ();

Python example

world.SaveState

Lua example

SaveState ()

Lua notes

See the forum thread http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=4960 for suggestions about how to serialize Lua tables into a variable. This has example OnPluginSaveState functions.

Return value

eNotAPlugin: Script is not currently executing inside a plugin.
ePluginCouldNotSaveState: The plugin could not save its state (eg. no "state" directory, disk full, not permitted)
eOK: Plugin saved its state OK.

Return code meanings

Related topic

Plugins

See also