public function?

[Astram]

Iv'e seen a lot of "public functions" I think that these functions are accessible in all scripts, am I correct? Saying this...

PHP Code:

public function Purchase(a, b) 


Would that seem like something a public function is? And will work?

[cbk1994]

Let's say you have a level NPC with this code:

PHP Code:

function hit() {
  this.chat = "I was hit!";
} 


If you tried to call this function from another script, you wouldn't be able to.

PHP Code:

myNPC.hit(); 


You would see a "function not accessible" error.

When you make it public, it can be called by another script. To make something public, all you need to do is change "function" to "public function".

For example, if you have a system named Health, and you wanted to add a function for healing a player, your code might look like this:

PHP Code:

// weapon Health
//#CLIENTSIDE
public function heal() {
  player.hearts = player.fullhearts;
} 


then, in any other clientside script, you could do

PHP Code:

Health.heal(); 


in order to call the 'heal' function in the Health weapon.

In object-oriented programming, it's good style to make all of your internal functions private. The idea is to provide easy functions like "player.heal()" or "player.hurt()". Then, if you ever change how your HP system works, you don't have to change any scripts that use those public functions. You want to hide the nitty-gritty stuff and just provide functions for doing certain tasks.