// // If you thought the last exercise was a deep dive, hold onto your // hat because we are about to descend into the computer's molten // core. // // (Shouting) DOWN HERE, THE BITS AND BYTES FLOW FROM RAM TO THE CPU // LIKE A HOT, DENSE FLUID. THE FORCES ARE INCREDIBLE. BUT HOW DOES // ALL OF THIS RELATE TO THE DATA IN OUR ZIG PROGRAMS? LET'S HEAD // BACK UP TO THE TEXT EDITOR AND FIND OUT. // // Ah, that's better. Now we can look at some familiar Zig code. // // @import() adds the imported code to your own. In this case, code // from the standard library is added to your program and compiled // with it. All of this will be loaded into RAM when it runs. Oh, and // that thing we name "const std"? That's a struct! // const std = @import("std"); // Remember our old RPG Character struct? A struct is really just a // very convenient way to deal with memory. These fields (gold, // health, experience) are all values of a particular size. Add them // together and you have the size of the struct as a whole. const Character = struct { gold: u32 = 0, health: u8 = 100, experience: u32 = 0, }; // Here we create a character called "the_narrator" that is a constant // (immutable) instance of a Character struct. It is stored in your // program as data, and like the instruction code, it is loaded into // RAM when your program runs. The relative location of this data in // memory is hard-coded and neither the address nor the value changes. const the_narrator = Character{ .gold = 12, .health = 99, .experience = 9000, }; // This "global_wizard" character is very similar. The address for // this data won't change, but the data itself can since this is a var // and not a const. var global_wizard = Character{}; // A function is instruction code at a particular address. Function // parameters in Zig are always immutable. They are stored in "the // stack". A stack is a type of data structure and "the stack" is a // specific bit of RAM reserved for your program. The CPU has special // support for adding and removing things from "the stack", so it is // an extremely efficient place for memory storage. // // Also, when a function executes, the input arguments are often // loaded into the beating heart of the CPU itself in registers. // // Our main() function here has no input parameters, but it will have // a stack entry (called a "frame"). pub fn main() void { // Here, the "glorp" character will be allocated on the stack // because each instance of glorp is mutable and therefore unique // to the invocation of this function. var glorp = Character{ .gold = 30, }; // However, this "skull_farmer" character will be put in the // global immutable data even though it's defined in a function. // Since it's immutable, all invocations of the function can share // this one value. const skull_farmer = Character{}; // The "reward_xp" value is interesting. It's a constant value, so // it could go with other global data. But being such a small // value, it may also simply be inlined as a literal value in your // instruction code where it is used. It's up to the compiler. const reward_xp: u32 = 200; // Now let's circle back around to that "std" struct we imported // at the top. Since it's just a regular Zig value once it's // imported, we can also assign new names for its fields and // declarations. "debug" refers to another struct and "print" is a // public function namespaced within THAT struct. // // Let's assign the std.debug.print function to a const named // "print" so that we can use this new name later! const print = ???; // Now let's look at assigning and pointing to values in Zig. // // We'll try three different ways of making a new name to access // our glorp Character and change one of its values. // // "glorp_access1" is incorrectly named! We asked Zig to set aside // memory for another Character struct. So when we assign glorp to // glorp_access1 here, we're actually assigning all of the fields // to make a copy! Now we have two separate characters. // // You don't need to fix this. But notice what gets printed in // your program's output for this one compared to the other two // assignments below! var glorp_access1: Character = glorp; glorp_access1.gold = 111; print("1:{}!. ", .{glorp.gold == glorp_access1.gold}); // NOTE: // // If we tried to do this with a const Character instead of a // var, changing the gold field would give us a compiler error // because const values are immutable! // // "glorp_access2" will do what we want. It points to the original // glorp's address. Also remember that we get one implicit // dereference with struct fields, so accessing the "gold" field // from glorp_access2 looks just like accessing it from glorp // itself. var glorp_access2: *Character = &glorp; glorp_access2.gold = 222; print("2:{}!. ", .{glorp.gold == glorp_access2.gold}); // "glorp_access3" is interesting. It's also a pointer, but it's a // const. Won't that disallow changing the gold value? No! As you // may recall from our earlier pointer experiments, a constant // pointer can't change what it's POINTING AT, but the value at // the address it points to is still mutable! So we CAN change it. const glorp_access3: *Character = &glorp; glorp_access3.gold = 333; print("3:{}!. ", .{glorp.gold == glorp_access3.gold}); // NOTE: // // If we tried to do this with a *const Character pointer, // that would NOT work and we would get a compiler error // because the VALUE becomes immutable! // // Moving along... // // Passing arguments to functions is pretty much exactly like // making an assignment to a const (since Zig enforces that ALL // function parameters are const). // // Knowing this, see if you can make levelUp() work as expected - // it should add the specified amount to the supplied character's // experience points. // print("XP before:{}, ", .{glorp.experience}); // Fix 1 of 2 goes here: levelUp(glorp, reward_xp); print("after:{}.\n", .{glorp.experience}); } // Fix 2 of 2 goes here: fn levelUp(character_access: Character, xp: u32) void { character_access.experience += xp; } // And there's more! // // Data segments (allocated at compile time) and "the stack" // (allocated at run time) aren't the only places where program data // can be stored in memory. They're just the most efficient. Sometimes // we don't know how much memory our program will need until the // program is running. Also, there is a limit to the size of stack // memory allotted to programs (often set by your operating system). // For these occasions, we have "the heap". // // You can use as much heap memory as you like (within physical // limitations, of course), but it's much less efficient to manage // because there is no built-in CPU support for adding and removing // items as we have with the stack. Also, depending on the type of // allocation, your program MAY have to do expensive work to manage // the use of heap memory. We'll learn about heap allocators later. // // Whew! This has been a lot of information. You'll be pleased to know // that the next exercise gets us back to learning Zig language // features we can use right away to do more things!