In-game console

[Mr.Beans]

I'm creating a game, and I want to have an in-game console. I have the gui for it done, however, I'm usure as how to do the interpreting part.

I want to set it up so I can easily change in-game settings and instantiate classes.

For example, I would have something like

full_screen OFF // sets full_screen to off
load ./res/pick.bmp 10 10 // Load a picture at the coordinates 10 10

The way I have come up with doesn't sound like it would be the best way.
I would have a dictionary of runnables which would have something like "load" as a key to look it up.

Is there a better way to do this?

Any links, ideas, suggestions, feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and effort,

Mr. Beans

[quad64bit]

You'll have to create methods for each type of action to be performed. A method could interpret the input to figure out what type of command is being issued, then call the appropriate method passing any relevant parameters. i.e.:

private void read(){
input = in.readLine();
if(input.startsWith("full_screen"))
    fullScreen(input.split(' ')[1]);
...
}

private void fullScreen(String command){
if(command.equals("OFF"))
    //make windowed
else if(command.equals("ON")
    //make full screen
else
    //error
}

This is over simplified, but you get the idea. You could also use java's REGEX if you want to get fancy.

You could create a hashTable or something to map key values -- but if you simply need to do what's typed, then a simple large method might be the easiest

[Mr.Beans]

I'm planning on having lots of commands, is there a better way to go about it than having a ton of ifs to check what the command is then call the corresponding method that is needed to deal with the command?

Thank you for your response,

Mr. Beans

[Singing Boyo]

hmm... I have something for that somewhere, I used it for commands being sent through sockets. I'll try to dig it out, it had an abstract Command class that used keys for validation, and an abstract method execute(), and I created anonymous classes... I'll see if I can find it, and post if for you.

[Fubarable]

I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for (more my problem than yours, I'm sure), but should you be looking at the Command or Strategy design pattern? Just a random thought.

[Singing Boyo]

Found my package for commands. Remember when you look through it that I used it for Serialized commands sent through Sockets, so the Socket parsed commands etc, then sent them to something else to be dealt with. I've attached a zip file with the package source code, have a look, most of the files also have Javadoc comments.

You'll definitely have to change some things, but it should help you start out.