Forums Scripts & Popups Troubles with a timer

Hi all,
I'm trying to make a very simple script, but have some troubles with a timer..

Firstly, here's what I did :

So when I type, for example, /stock 115 5000, people on the chan are alerted of the new Stock and Time left.

Now, people can also check the Stock and Time left at any time by typing !stock. So I added in Remote :



Now, my problem is that the time left is supposed to be reduced of 0.5 every second. But it seems to stop after the first change, so people will always see the same value (timeleft - 0.5) every time they type !stock.


1) What's wrong in my script ?
2) Any solution ? Thanks

~ Crupu

The problem is that $calc(%timeleft - 0.5) is evaluated inside the /stock alias and not at the time of /timer's firing. In other words, the /timer command only sees the value of $calc(%timeleft - 0.5) at the time /stock was executed - it does not see the string "$calc(%timeleft - 0.5)" (so that it can evaluate that string each time it fires).

There are several ways to solve this problem. In your case, the simplest might be to put an exclamation mark right after the $ in $calc, which prevents mirc from evaluating the identifier in /stock:

.timer $calc($2 * 2) 1 set %timeleft $!calc(%timeleft - 0.5)

However, if you have complex expressions in the part of the /timer, it becomes increasingly complicated to escape evaluations in script and the code becomes error-prone and hard to read. A cleaner alternative is to just create another alias that performs these commands and use that alias in /timer. In your case, this would look something like:

countdown { 
  set %timeleft $calc(%timeleft - 0.5)
}

stock {
  set %stock $1
  set %timeleft $2
  msg $chan Current stock : %stock - Time left : %timeleft
  .timer $calc($2 * 2) 1 countdown
}

You might be wondering why we only had to escape $calc() (in the first solution) and not %timeleft. This is because mirc prevents evaluation of variables when they directly follow a /set (also /dec and /inc) command. With this in mind, a third solution to your problem is

stock {
  set %stock $1
  set %timeleft $2
  msg $chan Current stock : %stock - Time left : %timeleft
  .timer $calc($2 * 2) 1 dec %timeleft 0.5
}

Thanks, it works better

Another problem now is that the timer never stops.. It's supposed to stop when the timing reaches 0 (or almost), but it keeps doing -0.5 every second, to the infinite...? :|

Check for rogue timers by typing /timers, then stop them with /timer<name> off. It is a good idea to use a named timer in your /stock alias, so that a subsequent /stock call will simply reset the same timer instead of starting a new one that works concurrently.

Alternatively, you can use /set -z and get rid of the /timer altogether. The only issue is that -z decreases by 1 every second, not by 0.5 as you want. You can fix that by setting %timeleft to $calc($2 * 2) (instead of simply $2) and then using $calc(%timeleft / 2) when reporting its value with a /notice: