Define and Default vs. Lint and Saves

[Apa]

This is sort of follow up from Save and objects and Insert variables into code instead of into strings?
In short:
To be able lint an initialized variable, it has to be "Define", not "Default"
To be able to save/rollback a variable should be "Default".
To marry two, I’ve aliased "Default" variable to "Define" one.

Code: Select all

# for lint
define rooms_init = { # "e" - enabled, "n" - nodes
    home :   { "e" : True,  "n": [yard, city], },
}

# for save
default rooms = rooms_init

But PyTom wrote:

You're not allowed to alias an init time variable with a non-init-time variable.

I’m lost completely...

1. Am I right that:
"Define" == init time variable
"Default" == non-init-time variable

2. What breaks exactly, if they are aliased?

3. What is the proper way to handle such aliasing?

[nyaatrap]

Define overwrite default everytime when game loads, so you can't alias mutable object.
Instead, you can copy objects using the copy module so these two objects become different.
from copy import copy, deepcopy: default rooms = deepcopy(rooms_init) #deepcopy if variable is nested

[Apa]

Define overwrite default everytime when game loads, so you can't alias mutable object.

Ok.
When I had "Define" only variable - load didn’t restore it. And it won’t show up in Variable viewer either.
Right after I added "Default" as alias - load starts working properly.
By "load" I meant, "quit game, start and load" sequence.
I.e. I’m seeing different behavior than the one you described...
Would you suggest a simple test (with print statements to a file?) to see, what’s going on under the hood during load, please?
"Seeing == Believing", right?

Instead, you can copy objects using the copy module so these two objects become different.
from copy import copy, deepcopy: default rooms = deepcopy(rooms_init) #deepcopy if variable is nested

Yep, it’s clear.
Would it be a good idea to let GC pick up "Define" object as it served its purpose already (and could be fairly big!)?
And if the answer is yes, would it be the same to do:

Code: Select all

default rooms = rooms_init
rooms_init = None

instead of

Code: Select all

default rooms = deepcopy(rooms_init) #deepcopy

I’m terribly sorry for very newbie questions...

[nyaatrap]

It looks I misunderstand a bit.

Code: Select all

define a =[]
default b= a

label:
  $b.append(0)
  "[b] [a]" #shows [0], [0]
  #reload here
  "[b] [a]" #shows [0], []

If you creates an alias of a mutable object (list or dict), then changing one also changes another in the current play. If you reload data, define re-creates same object, but it's a new different thing so two object becomes different.
If you understand this behavior, it might work on your code.

[Apa]

It looks default creates copy of object, not alias of it. So I think your code works.

Do you mean RenPy "Default" statement is "syntactic sugar" for python deepcopy()?
And again, anyway to prove it easily?

[nyaatrap]

I edited my previous post (that was wrong).
Ren'py saves original object data, but define always creates a new data that will not saved, so they behave like copies.

[Apa]

I edited my previous post (that was wrong).
Ren'py saves original object data, but define always creates a new data that will not saved, so they behave like copies.

You code shows, it’s perfectly fine to that (or I don't understand PyTom statement):

You're not allowed to alias an init time variable with a non-init-time variable.

They’ll be aliased until 1st load only.

And you didn’t show rollback behavior... nothing would break either, right?