something I would like for myself

[[Null]Hyper]

The only reason I ask you guys is that I cannot program well (except some PHP and mIRC scripts) and do not have a compiler and don't want to go through the nightmare of installing a C compiler on windows.

I'd like Armagetron to support COM calls, so that other programs (such as mIRC) can get certain data from the game (for away playing game scripts, etc.). Data like, the server connected to, server address, how many players on server, etc.

If anybody could help me out here, it would be much appreciated.

[[Null]Hyper]

looking through the AA source, I do see some COM stuff, but all of it is commented out!

why is this?

[Lucifer]

Because COM is worthless?

The direction we're going right now is to expose a web service, SOAP or xml-rpc or something like that. There's an embedded web server in cvs head that will be used for that, and I'll probably start hacking on it again in the next couple of weeks (that or I'll take on the configuration system again). I've been trying not to get too far away from the 0.2.8 branch in cvs head, and pretty busy otherwise, so not a whole lot of work has been done in this area.

But yeah, I'm definitely looking at ways to control the server from other programs, and this isn't one of our "throw python at it (means it goes on the list of things that might get done)" solutions, it's actually in progress.

[[Null]Hyper]

I think you're talking about the server. I'm asking about the client. I want the client to output information about the current server (if connected to one) upon request from another application (such as an IRC client).

[Lucifer]

Aha. See, the problem with using a com object is that com is, erm, platform-restricted. I'm not fundamentally opposed to having it, but I'd like to see a more neutral solution.

The web server should work for the client too, but the problem with that is that it's a poke-it service, i.e. it doesn't do anything unless you poke it, which isn't suitable for what you're wanting to do.

OTOH, there is a long-term vision of putting python in there, and then you could write up some python (or reasonable facsimile thereof) to provide what you're wanting.

Other than that, there hasn't been any discussion about this that I know of.

[[Null]Hyper]

maybe a good starting point would be to put a server info file in the var/ directory? output server name, ip, number of players, etc. into the file. and rewrite it every round or something to that effect.

then any number of things could be done with that file, ie PERL, PHP, mIRC, whatever.

if this doesn't get enough support, maybe someone could just help me modify the source and recompile?

[dlh]

output server name, ip, number of players

Server name or IP doesn't really change, and for the other check players.txt

[[Null]Hyper]

yes, but how can you access this information from outside the client? afaik, the client doesn't put the player information or the server name/ip in a file like the server would. only if you're hosting a game.