Hi all!

I've been using Angelscript for some time now, and I've been frustrated with CScriptAny's lack of flexibility, and the fact that you NEED to know the type of the pointer that you have while you instantiate CScriptAny. Hence, I've been writing a small utility that mimics most (if not all) the features of C's void pointers, while adhering to Angelscript. I'd be honored if this helps anyone

Basically, it behaves similarly to CScriptAny, except for the fact that it does not need the type of the pointer that you pass it. of course, having the type information is not a problem. So, it acts as a general purpose wrapper around all void pointers in C++ code that does not need type information to instantiate it. It can then be passed to angelScript from where data can be accessed from the voidPtr, similar to how CScriptAny lets one access it's contents in the script side of things. If the voidPtr has been instantiated with type information, it behaves like CScriptAny, allowing conversion between int, float, double as well as betwen base class / derived class relationships. BUT without type information, this cannot be done. Hence, caution needs to be exercised while using this without type information(just like normal void pointers), since such conversion cannot be done automatically.

it's in a Visual Studio 2012 project. On executing the project, it shows off the features of the addon, (accessing primitives, object types and handle types from the script side when the voidPtr class is created in the C++ side without type information). the main() function is present in voidPtr_Addon_Real/voidPtr_Addon_Real.cpp. I don't really have experience with Linux or Mac, so I'm sorry that I wasn't able to make it platform-agnostic.

The two files that contain the addon are voidPtr.h and voidPtr.cpp.

The path is voidPtr_Addon_Real/voidPtr.h. The cpp is also in the same folder.

The script file is in script/voidPtr.as

The exe is in Release/voidPtr_addon_Real.exe

forgive the horrendous project name ;)

I've tried to keep it minimal. It does use templates for some ease of use, though it can be rewritten to not use them.

Here's the Google Drive link: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B_CmqmRQ2-AzS1plUWVSVXpNWDA/edit?usp=sharing

TL;DR - addon for angelScript that allows void pointer use without requiring type information. acts as a generic void pointer wrapper.

Thanks all!

~Bollu

The problem with allowing void pointers to be passed around without tracking the type as well is that it is difficult to guarantee safety. For this reason a container class like this can't be used in any projects that wish to maintain a 'sandboxed' environment for the scripts, i.e. where the scripts shall not be able to doing anything wrong, however badly written they are.

Still, I'm sure there are a lot of people that don't care whether the scripts are 'sandboxed' or not, and in such cases I'm certain they will welcome a container class like this.

I had the same urge. But in time it became apparent that people are pretty bad at following simple guidelines.

I have added unsafe iterators for my containers to allow faster find-delete. Put up real nice documentation about how it would crash if it's invalidated.

Almost immediately someone invalidated iterators. And i got the blame of writing bad code :(

Ah, I hadn't realized that would become a problem :/ Back to the drawing board :D

has anybody tested this? I'd like to catch some bugs / hear some metrics :)