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What's the best way to design long if/elseif trees?
I doubt this will matter practically for a Twine 2 game, but I'm playing around with Twine 2 / Sugarcube partially to learn basic programming. So, basic coding question.
Say we have this example.
Would the game run faster if things were rearranged like this?
I'm wondering whether the empty <<if>> at the start of the tree would speed things up by preventing the rest of the tree from running by stopping the game running through each <<elseif>> for heroes whose assignment is not “train sword skill.” Put another way, does the code go all the way through all if trees, or does it move on once a clause is satisfied?
Or should I be designing long if trees another way entirely?
Say we have this example.
<<if ($hero[$i].assignment is “train sword skill”) and ($hero[$i]. swordSkill is 1)>> They practice clumsily with a sword. <<elseif ($hero[$i].assignment is “train sword skill”) and ($hero[$i]. swordSkill is 2)>> They exercise with a sword. <<elseif ($hero[$i].assignment is “train sword skill”) and ($hero[$i]. swordSkill is 3)>> They work masterfully with a sword. <</if>>
Would the game run faster if things were rearranged like this?
<<if ($hero[$i].assignment is “train sword skill”)>> <<elseif ($hero[$i].swordSkill is 1)>> They practice clumsily with a sword. <<elseif ($hero[$i].swordSkill is 2)>> They exercise with a sword. <<elseif ($hero[$i].swordSkill is 3)>> They work masterfully with a sword. <</if>>
I'm wondering whether the empty <<if>> at the start of the tree would speed things up by preventing the rest of the tree from running by stopping the game running through each <<elseif>> for heroes whose assignment is not “train sword skill.” Put another way, does the code go all the way through all if trees, or does it move on once a clause is satisfied?
Or should I be designing long if trees another way entirely?
Comments
As to how that should be done, greyelf is correct.
Beyond that, the parenthesis are redundant here. Additionally, you seem to be using typographic (a.k.a. curly/smart) quotes (copy/paste from a word processor?) which will not work here. Only double/single quotes are allowable as "programming" quotes. You may still use typographic quotes within your normal text, however.
So, merging greyelf's suggestion with the issues I noted, it should probably look like the following: Whatever you do, mind your whitespace (incl. line breaks).
Speaking of which, here's a somewhat more succinct version, which ensures that it's not creating extra whitespace internally, particularly line breaks: