Help with making my code smaller.

[Arkhanno]

I'm a bit of a beginner when it comes to programming, but I'm trying to create a battle calculator. I've been trying to keep my code as neat and small as possible, but there are some points that I just don't know how to make smaller. Code is below.

Turing:

setscreen ("text") type Stats : record Name : string HP : int Str : int Def : int Spd : int Int : int Arm : int end record var player, monster : array 1 .. 4 of Stats var position : array 1 .. 8 of string var currentp, currentm, playernum, monsternum, food, spell : int put "How many players are there?" get playernum put "" put "How many monsters are there?" get monsternum put "" currentp := 0 for i : 1 .. upper (player)     currentp := currentp + 1     put "What is player ", currentp, "'s name and stats?"     get player (i).Name, player (i).HP, player (i).Str, player (i).Def, player (i).Spd, player (i).Int, player (i).Arm     exit when currentp = playernum end for currentm := 0 for x : 1 .. upper (monster)     currentm := currentm + 1     put "What is monster ", currentm, "'s name?"     get monster (x).Name, monster (x).HP, monster (x).Str, monster (x).Def, monster (x).Spd, monster (x).Int, monster(x).Arm     exit when currentm = monsternum end for if (playernum = 4) and (monsternum = 4) then     if (player (1).Spd > player (2).Spd) and (player (1).Spd > player (3).Spd) and (player (1).Spd > player (4).Spd) and (player (1).Spd > monster (1).Spd) and (player (1).Spd > monster (2).Spd) and (player (1).Spd > monster (3).Spd) and (player (1).Spd > monster (4).Spd) then         position (1) := player (1).Name     end if end if

The reason the code is small is because I'm doing checks to see if it runs properly as I write it, so I don't have to go back and do major changes when it gets too big. Is there any way to shorten the speed check to set positions? I'd rather not go much further before fixing this.

[ecookman]

i am not a turing master my self, but that looks like it can't be shrunk.

also when going back to look at code it is helpful to put in comments as you go along by putting % before a line

comments are lines of code that are within the code, but are ignored by the computer

[Zren]

Making it small and all is nice. However, people shouldn't have to look at the source in order to run it. Thus, Have some user output for the stats...

code:

var currentp, currentm, playernum, monsternum, food, spell : int := 0

thus killing the need for:

code:

currentm := 0 currentp := 0

Actually, you don't even need those variables...

code:

currentp := 0 for i : 1 .. upper (player)     currentp := currentp + 1     put "What is player ", currentp, "'s name and stats?"     get player (i).Name, player (i).HP, player (i).Str, player (i).Def, player (i).Spd, player (i).Int, player (i).Arm     exit when currentp = playernum end for

can become

code:

for i : 1 .. upper (player)     put "What is player ", i, "'s name and stats?"     get player (i).Name, player (i).HP, player (i).Str, player (i).Def, player (i).Spd, player (i).Int, player (i).Arm     exit when i = playernum end for

Why would you have two counters?


Efficient coding is good. However, unreadble and lazey coding that doesn't serve it's purpose, or the user doesn't understand what to do, is reaaaaaaally frowned upon, by me at least.

[ecookman]

hmm i never thought of that zren

[Arkhanno]

I've been improving my skills and looking around: I added a bubble sort for the speed check so I wouldn't have a giant set of if statements, which eliminated the counter. Again, the code is just in the beginning stages (And I'm still a poor programmer) and will be a lot bigger when it's finished. As for the comments, the reason I haven't been using them is because I'm the only one that's going to be looking at/changing the code around, at least for the most part. I didn't add any when posting it here because right now the code is straight forward and easily readable. If there was something that was more esoteric then I would have added a comment.

Thanks for the help; gonna go back to making the food and spell parts of the system.